


all there's left to do is run

by spacelabrathor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Dissociation, F/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Slavery, Vague Dothraki Concepts, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 72,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21642919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacelabrathor/pseuds/spacelabrathor
Summary: Horse warlord Thor finds you a captive in a raid of a desert village and gives you a choice. Freedom by a quick death or taking his hand and going with him, to be his. You choose life, and with it, a husband who is wild and fierce and more than you could have ever imagined.Very rough Dothraki AU.
Relationships: Thor (Marvel)/Original Female Character(s), Thor (Marvel)/Reader, Thor/Reader
Comments: 340
Kudos: 722





	1. Chapter 1

It’s easy to pretend. To slip back into your mind and away from the conscious world of dust and sand and caustic desert sun. Away from the man who sits behind and above you on a throne covered in plush velvet and embedded with large pieces of colored glass. Who touches at his rings boredly as the sun slowly walks itself across the cloudless sky, toying with a leather rope in his other hand. Gripping and regripping the material in his palm as if it doesn’t tug where it’s attached to a collar around your throat with every squeeze. **  
**

You draw further back into your mind, shrouding yourself with the comfort of fantasy, and let the tugging of your leash rock your body softly back and forth, almost imperceptibly, with every grip of his hand. 

The braided leather around your neck is emblematic of the whole operation in this village. Flashy, all for show, and mostly bullshit. It’s not necessary to chain you to the man seated above you, King Jakkor. This station is the only source of water and shade for a weeks walk in any direction, so it’s not as if you have anywhere to run to. It does keep you in proximity to Jakkor, you suppose. If you had your freedom around the station you would certainly not spend it curled up on a settee next to and below the man who tugged absentmindedly at the leather rope attached to your collar. 

King Jakkor. Your eyes roll in your skull at the thought, even as your gaze trains somewhere on the far horizon, far away from your body and the soft satin under your thighs. 

He’s no king, not as his self-appointed title would have you believe. No, he’s the leader of a modest village that happened to strike gold when they found an oasis to settle on in the depths of the desert. His throne room is a tent with high vaulted ceilings and sides that are rolled up to let in a hot breeze and to allow Jakkor to survey his kingdom. 

Kingdom. You swallow down a scoff at the thought when the line connected to the leather cuff around your neck tightens in warning. 

Men are stationed on either side of the altar on which King Jakkor’s throne sits, elevated above all. The men fan Jakkor, and you incidentally, with dark green palm fronds, stirring the air and providing the faintest cool to the air as you sit and sweat in the afternoon heat. 

He’s dressed you well, you admit. Dropping your hands to your lap and touching distantly at the smooth material of the dress that’s draped over your thighs. Purchased from a merchant at a distant market, no doubt. The color of a bright gemstone, and a ridiculous choice for this climate. Showing every speck of dust that it touches and every ounce of sweat you produce. It wrinkles, too, so when you wear it you are forbidden from moving from the settee. 

All for appearances. All for no one, really, besides the ego of King Jakkor. 

You swallow and find your throat dry, your mind coming back into sharp focus at the strong, familiar ache of thirst. Your steele yourself and turn, looking back to face Jakkor, who is slouched on his throne. Sweat beading along his hairline as he twists his rings on his fingers and stares into the center square of the village, watching the people bustle to and fro, paying their leader no mind as they go about the day’s chores. 

Your take care to neutralize your face when his gaze comes to yours, feeling the line around your throat tighten reflexively as you turn in place to face him. His eyes fall to yours, and you can’t help the twist of loathing that flares in your gut at the absolute disdain his expression levels at you. 

You raise your eyebrows to him gently, pleadingly. Not needing to ask out loud, for you only ever ask him for one thing. 

Water. 

Water is plentiful in the village, thanks to a deep and blessed well in the village center, but you would never know it. Jakkor gains some enjoyment you don’t understand from restricting your access to it. Water is as scarce of a resource to you here in the village as it would be in the middle of the desert, his tight, controlling rationing of your supply leaving you perpetually light headed and aching, even as you glance out into the center square and see people dumping buckets of it over their livestock to cool them. Even as Jakkor himself drinks to excess, letting it spill around his lips and down his neck as you watch, your mouth dry and full of dust, as you swallow thickly. 

You seem to have caught him in a charitable mood, for he sees your raised brows, your quiet pleading, and acquiesces. Sitting up in his throne and reaching to the pitcher he keeps next to the throne, tucked back in the shade. 

He gestures for you with his free hand, tugging on the rope for good measure, and you lean towards him over the back of the settee. Tilting your chin up obediently for him, even as your insides simmer with indignity, as he presses the edge of the pitcher to your lips and tips. He pours for a moment and you sigh unconsciously as you drink, relief flooding you at your first taste since waking earlier that morning. Wetting your lips and your throat and tasting like salvation. 

He tips the pitcher back abruptly, drawing a soft, unconscious sound of protest from your lips, which gets you a yank on the rope that tugs you against the back of the settee and jarrs the last of the water in your mouth out past your lips, dripping down onto your dress. You take a halting breath, getting your hands under you to push yourself back upright, and turn away from him. Resuming your station on the settee, facing out. A trophy for anyone who cared to look, proof of the power of King Jakkor.

No one does care to look, you’ve found. Your time in this cursed place has brought no shortage of opportunities for the residents of the village to show you kindness, and at each turn, you have been rejected. Looked at with scorn and distaste, though you’ve been nothing but a silent and unwilling decoration at Jakkor’s side since he took ownership of you. They resent you, perhaps, for the fine clothing he dresses you in, as they dress in scratchy wool and rough linens, afforded none of the luxury that Jakkor allows himself. They don’t know that he controls every drop of water that goes into your body and deprives you when he sees fit. They don’t know that he takes you to his chambers every night and does with you what he wishes. 

Perhaps they do know these things, but if they do, they certainly do not care. 

You wonder, as you focus your consciousness on the pleasant feeling of the cool water settling in your belly, what sort of event could unfold that would swallow this village whole. What act of god or nature could burn this place to the ground and return it all to dust, to be scattered by the desert winds. As they deserve. 

It’s a favored fantasy of yours, as you spend your days sitting so still that your muscles cramp and your head aches from the lack of water. An easy daydream to slip into, imagining the chaos and flame it would take to destroy the buildings and the people and the gilded farce that surrounds this little oasis in the middle of nowhere. Wishing it upon every upturned nose you recieve when villagers make accidental eye contact with you, upon every touch of Jakkors hands on your skin. Dreaming at night, after Jakkor has rolled over and fallen asleep, of how delighted you would be at the prospect of some such event, even if it meant losing yourself in it. 

For what you’re doing now is not really living, you think, as you catalogue the bruises on your skin as sleep circles your mind like a hungry wolf. Skittish and hovering, but inevitable. You just hope that when the day comes, if the day ever comes, that you are allowed to live long enough to see the village fall. Then, and only then, you think, can you truly rest. 

It’s a fools dream, you know. An escape. A hopeless fantasy that you indulge in to keep more destructive thoughts at bay. You know that if some force of nature does not flatten the town, that you will someday have to try. As sleep shrouds you like a hot, smothering blanket, you allow yourself to dream of a miracle. You allow yourself that one indulgence. 

Days later, your back is aching from sitting upright and statute still and you feel a drop of sweat drip down your back and soak into the silk of your dress. Your throat is raw and dry, having been denied when you’d requested a drink not an hour ago. You swallow, painfully, feeling the leather cuff around your throat tighten as you do. 

King Jakkor is holding court, or his version of it. Propped up on his throne and speaking to members of the village as they stand before him and plead for one thing or another. The men on either side of the throne are fanning as they usually do, but they each pause for a moment when a sudden breeze kicks up. 

It’s unusual, the air in the village usually stagnant and stale, and they give each other a puzzled look as a sudden gust stirs the dust in the tent, making everyone in the tent cover their eyes and noses from the dust whirled up. 

As soon as the air clears, you find yourself turning on the settee and looking to the left, where a gap in the tents and huts allows you a clear view of the horizon. Wondering if maybe a storm is brewing, bringing blessed rain and cool air. 

Clouds are indeed gathering there, along the horizon, and shivers race down your arms as goosebumps prickle up your skin, as you feel the ambient temperature in the air drop considerably on the coming breeze. A storm, for sure. Rain, if you’re lucky, and you wonder if you can get Jakkor to allow you to stand out in the downpour. To open your mouth and take in what you can, letting the rain wash you and cleanse you and make you whole again. 

Everyone in the tent is looking where you are, all coming, no doubt to the same conclusion. Jakkor turns back after a moment, everyone waiting on him to decide how to proceed, and he sighs dismissively. Turning back to the villager before him and prompting him to go on with his impassioned plea. Either knowing there would be time before the storm hit or using his demonstrative lack of concern over it’s impending arrival as a show of strength over nature. 

You force yourself back into your usual position, facing forward. Schooling your expression to impassive, even as your insides tingle with what feels like electricity in the air. Trying to remember the last time you had felt rain on your skin and coming up empty, unable to even remember a memory of it. 

A rumble sounds out, echoing in the stormy air, and you shiver again. Expecting thunder, then, to boom across the sandy dunes and rattle the supports of the tented chambers of Jakkor. To lull you to sleep later with their power and might as you curl up tiny beneath the raging storm. 

But no thunder comes. The low, rumbling roar lingers in the air, the sound of some great collision or crash echoing thickly along the sandy ground. Your sandalled feet, resting on the ground beneath the settee tickle on a distant thrum that has your brow twisting in confusion. 

You turn to face Jakkor reflexively. Deferring subconsciously to his experience, him being twice your age at least. Assuming that he’s seen this before. That he knows what is about to happen. 

When your eyes meet his, you find his expression drawn. Confused around the edges, though his air of perceived regality remains firmly affixed in place. Your mouth drops open, a question on the tip of your tongue that will certainly get your leash a hard yank in punishment, but before the words can drop from your lips, a sound rips through the air. Cutting through and above the low key rumble that has the pitcher on the ground next to the throne rattling against the throne leg. 

A scream. A piercing, guttural scream that locks your muscles on instinct, the hair on your arms standing up. 

It is not a scream of fear nor pain. It is a booming whoop that carries on the air that’s thickened up from the incoming storm. A shout of announcement. Of warning. 

You watch as the color drains from Jakkor’s face as realization dawns. 

Raiders. 

The low rumbling thunder is the sound of horse hooves on hard packed sand. The scream cutting through the air a siren of intention. Of bloodlust and rage and delight in the prospect of pillaging the village for all it’s worth. 

One of the men fanning the throne drops his palm, his mouth falling open, and in the village center, a woman screams. 

Everything is still for long, lingering moment, and then another shout cracks through the air from the cloud of rising dust growing nearer on the horizon. A cloud of dust kicked up by horse hooves, not the stormy breeze. 

All at once, the village lurches into frantic chaos, women and men screaming alike as they scramble for protection, for a weapon, for something, to save them from impending destruction, and as the first rain drops hit your face through the open throne-room tent flaps, you throw back your head and laugh. 

Everything happens very quickly then. People rush through the village, frantic and screaming and knocking each other to the ground. Looking desperately for a way to defend themselves. For a way out. 

But there is none. The village has survived by the good grace of being founded on an oasis and water source and by the sheer luck of being surrounded by miles of desert. The village has developed no defenses or military force because it’s never needed to. The village has instead invested in finery for King Jakkor and that alone, for a decade or more. The only weapons in the station are used for hunting and more in the way of snares and nooses than sharp blades or blunt objects, useless in the face of raiders on powerful horseback, armed with swords and knives. 

You cannot stop laughing. Tipping back against the edge of the settee as your lungs heave on hysterical laughter. Tears gathering in your eyes and nearly spilling down your cheeks at the dumb luck of it all. At getting your wish, finally. Your wildest fantasy, realized before your eyes. 

Behind you, Jakkor is frozen on his throne. His hand clamped down on the rope attached to your collar, the color gone from his face. The fanning men have disappeared, as have the villagers who had been attending court, leaving only him, muscles rigid with fear atop his throne, and you, tipping backwards as your body shakes with uncontrollable laughter. 

The rumbling thunder of hoofbeats is deafening as the cloud of swirling dust approaches the village, faster now, and closing quickly, and when you turn and look, you can see the faint outlines of individual riders atop individual horses, the sun dimming behind storm clouds glinting off of their outstretched blades. 

There are more screams now. A chorus of them, coming from the horde. Joyful sounding, almost, even as they turn your blood to instinctive ice at the intention dripping from the shouts. 

The rain begins to really fall then, the light sprinkle turning to a downpour, adding a rushing element to the chorus of panicked screams of the villagers and the thunder of the oncoming raiding band. 

You watch as the group draws nearer and nearer, able to just make out the length of the riders hair whipping in the wind and the immense size of their mounts, before they reach the edge of the village. 

The first line of them crashes though the tents on the outer ring of the village, their horses shredding the linen beneath their hooves and it sounds like a crashing wave and a crack of booming thunder, echoing across the sand as wood and cloth and bodies are pulverized by the strength of the horde. 

Your lungs ache as your laughter finally dies out, tears drying on your cheeks, as you see the first blood shed as a lead rider on a great black horse takes a full arced swing at a fleeing man from atop his mount and blood sprays as the man falls to the puddled, sandy earth. 

You close your eyes then, your chest still vibrating on the echoes of laughter, a smile on your lips, as you lean back against the settee and let the rain wash over you. Ready and waiting to die. 

You fade in and out, having gone inside of yourself again, far away from your physical body, as the sounds of death and carnage fill your ears, but a sound catches your attention and rouses you, though you know not why. 

Your mind spins at what you see when your eyes open, blood on the sand, bodies laid out and limp, and your stomach twists viciously on the sound of screams echoing in your ears. 

You realize after a dizzying moment is that what’s caught your attention is a horse, stomping and stamping outside of the throne room tent. A great black stallion, splashing up bloody puddles of water under its immense hooves, snorting loudly, almost impatiently, as it’s rider holds it in place with a tight grip on the reins. 

The rider dismounts, and the sound his feet make when they impact the earth rings like thunder in your ears. The rider drops the reins as he steps away and the stallion takes off as if bade to do so, kicking up wet sand in his wake as he gallops off with a bone chilling shriek. 

The rider shoulders his way past the outer tent flap and stands to his full height once inside. 

Your breath catches in your throat at the size of him, and you hear Jakkor’s ragged exhale behind you. 

It’s a man, taller than you’ve ever seen. The size of a mountain, nearly, towering in the small, open-air tent, his head nearly touching the ceiling. At his side is clenched an immense battle axe, pink-tinged water dripping down the blade.

His face, covered in a dark shroud, is spattered with red, and you don’t know if it’s war paint or blood. 

He glances over you, barely noticing you, before his eyes land on Jakkor behind you. 

The rider takes a step forward, one long-legged stride, and Jakkor is shrieking in fear. You feel a flurry of movement behind you before you hear another frantic sound, and then hands and feet shove hard against your shoulders. Spinning you off balance and forward, tumbling you to the ground before the settee in a crumpled heap. Unable to stop yourself before you collapse against the boots of the approaching rider. 

Breath rattles out of you in a gasp and your head darts up, your hands rushing out to push off of him, to get off of his feet, to back away, but the rider spares you a quick glance down before stepping neatly around your body and forward on a sudden strike of movement.

You have one blistering moment to realize that his eyes, framed by the dark shroud, are a startling blue, before Jakkor screams once more, and your eyes come up to see the rider swing his axe in a great arc. Bringing the full weight of it through Jakkor. Chopping him at the throat with a single swipe that has hot blood spraying up your body and Jakkors head toppling to the soft, wet sand below the throne. His body slumping back in the seat as blood sprays in rhythmic pulses from the space where his head once was. 

A breath rattles from your lungs through your clenched teeth, your chest heaving, and you can’t take your eyes from the sight of it. Of Jakkor’s head resting on it’s side in a puddle, eyes open and unseeing as blood clouds the water around it. Your heart is thundering against your ribs but you can’t look away, your gaze darting between his head and his body, draped over the throne. Lifeless. You look at his hands, laying limply in his lap. Never to touch you again. 

You find your mouth turning on a faint smile before movement startles you again. 

The rider is watching you, you realize. Having taken a step back from his kill. He’s looking down at you, the blue of his eyes electric in the framing of the dark shroud over his face. Lashes long and dark and dripping with rain water. The axe hangs at his side, dripping blood onto the sand. 

Your breath stutters in your lungs at the power in his gaze, and you find yourself pushing yourself upright, until you’re sitting on the sandy ground. Staring up at him with shaking limbs. 

He watches you for another moment, curiously, before he reaches up and unties something at his temple. The shroud falls away from his face, and you can’t stifle the soft gasp that falls from your lips. 

Without the shroud you can see that his hair is long and golden, even dampened from the rain, and pulled back from his face, revealing a heavy, dark beard over his jaw. He is tanned from the sun and the set of his bearded jaw is stern as he regards you. His expression is serious, one you might expect from a man who just beheaded another.

He is handsome, you dare to admit to yourself, as your heart lurches and skitters against your ribs, in the way that a wild beast is. Feral and beautiful and free. 

He shifts his weight on his hip as he looks down at you, his brow drawn in thought, even as his eyes belie a spark of curiosity. 

Neither of you speaks, the only sound your rapid breathing and the soft bubbling sounds of Jakkor’s body bleeding out onto to the sand. 

When he reaches for you, you find you don’t have the strength to flinch away. 

He takes the leather rope from Jakkors limp hand and pulls it tight. Gently, but enough to nearly tug you off balance. You lean back out of reflex, your eyes darting up to his as he pulls his arm back to draw tension into the line. He raises his axe and your breath stalls in your lungs as you start to see panicked spots in your vision. 

He sets the edge of the blade against the leather braid, and with the tiniest press, slices clean through it. Casting you back as the line snaps underneath the blade, forcing you to catch yourself before you pitch into the mud and sand. 

He cocks his head a little, the intrigue plain on his face now, as you pull the remnants of the leather rope to you. Touching at the clean cut from the axe, marveling at the sharpness of the blade and his strength to cut is so easily. You realize, looking up at him, that he could assure you a quick death, if he wanted to. 

You expect him to raise the axe again, but instead, he speaks. 

“Do you speak the common tongue?” he asks. His voice is deep. Gruff, like maybe he hadn’t used it in a while. Thickly masculine way that Jakkor’s never was. 

That catches you off guard. You blink up at him, feeling the Jakkor’s blood cooling where it sprayed on your cheeks. “Yes,” you answer, finally. 

He makes a quiet, contemplative noise at that, then looks up. Looking out through the open tent flaps to the battle waging outside. Where the men of his party are laying waste to the village and its people. You follow his gaze and see shrouded riders dumping bleeding bodies into the well. Poisoning the water supply for anyone that remains. 

“You smiled,” he says, his attention back on you. Not a question, but a statement, and your eyes dark back to him. His presence is visceral, powerful force you can feel pressing against your bones as he looks down at you. Towering over your huddled form. 

“I didn’t mean to,” you say, but it’s a lie, and he seems to know it. 

He thinks for a long moment, watching you. His blue eyes turning over some thought he’s not vocalizing, even as something that looks like a smile tugs at the corners of his lips. 

He holds out the axe in one hand and then extends his empty hand to you with the other. He waits, as your mind whirls uselessly, until you understand. 

He’s offering you a choice. Death, or to go with him. To be his captive, as you were Jakkor’s. 

It’s a choice Jakkor never gave you. 

You blink up at him stupidly. Your mind tripping over itself with the implication of the offer. 

He waits, watching you. After a moment, he indicates the axe with a little shake. “It would be painless,” he tells you, his voice softening almost imperceptibly. “You would feel nothing.” 

He is offering you freedom, and you both know it. Freedom in death.

You try to stop your voice from wobbling when you ask, “What is your name?”

“Thor,” he replies. Rainwater is dripping down his armor and onto the sand. Mixing with the blood pooling there. 

You feel your heart thudding in your chest as your eyes go from the edge of his blade to his eyes. His wild, blue eyes. 

“Would you kill me, if I asked,” you ask, your voice going quiet. “Later?” 

He considers that for a moment, looking down at you. Weighing it in his mind.

“Yes,” he says, finally. His voice sure, and you wonder if he’s ever unsure. He seems the type to always be sure. To say what he means and mean what he says.

Something hardens in your chest then. Resolve, you think. You look at his face and nod to him. Softly, but he sees it. When you reach for his empty hand, he takes it. His hand dwarfing yours as he tugs you to your feet. 

You sway immediately, embarrassingly, your lack of water and the overwhelming of the moment rushing over you at once, but he steps into your space easily to catch you with an arm around your waist. Tugging you close until you’re propped up against his chest, your cheek pressed against the smooth, worn leather of his chest plate. A puff of scent washes over your face, a musky, earthy smell that you realize must be him, and your hands come to grip at his armor nervously as your knees wobble beneath you. 

His chest vibrates on a deep chuckle, one clearly at your expense, and you feel your cheeks burn as he turns his head to yours. His nose presses against your cheek and then farther back, nudging against your ear and into your hair. His beard pressing against your cheek as he breathes a breath in, his mouth brushing over your ear as he takes in your scent on a deep inhale. 

Shivers rip down your spine at the feel of his hot breath against your ear, your throat, and you make a sound you don’t mean to, trying to pull away but flopping uselessly back against his chest when your legs fail you. 

He chuckles again, a deep, pleased sound, and you’d shove him if you had the strength. 

He scoops you into his arms with no effort, as your hands grip frantically at his armored shoulders to keep from pitching over his shoulder. He grunts once you’re up, a sound of satisfaction as his arm wraps securely underneath your rear. Holding you like a child, and you shove your face against his neck. Anger and fear and mortification melding into one smothering emotion as he steps out of the tent with you in his arms, out into the rain. 

It’s pouring, you realize as you’re drenched immediately in the downpour, and you start to shake in earnest then. Shivering in his arms as he grips you tight. The rain is icy cold, and you wonder distantly if you’re in some sort of shock as your teeth start to chatter together. 

He whistles through his teeth, a sharp, piercing sound, and a responding whinny responds from across the village as he carries you into the village center square. 

Your face is pressed against his bearded throat as you shiver violently, so you cannot see the scene unfolding in the village, but you can hear the slice of blade through flesh and the screams of lives ending in violence. You can smell flame and ash and blood, and you cannot bring yourself to feel any grief for the loss. 

A snort sounds near your ear, startling you in his arms, and when you pull your face from his neck, you see the great black stallion that he had ridden in on, stamping it’s foot impatiently as he reaches out and pats at it’s broad neck, soaked with blood and rainwater. He taps your thigh for a second, and it’s the only warning you get before he pitches you up over his head and onto the saddle that’s secured to the stallion’s back. 

Your hands flail at the horn of the saddle, gripping the wet, slippery wood to keep from going over the other side, but strong hands stop you and center you in the saddle before you can tip. Another chuckle from him, and your grit your teeth through shivers, wanting to kick him where your foot is dangling near his face. 

He pays you no mind, lifting his foot up and slipping it into a leather stirrup before gripping at the front of the saddle where it’s pressed to your belly, and heaving himself up onto it in one smooth motion. 

You sway with him as he settles into place, the stallion snorting again in displeasure and moving beneath you both as he takes the reins in one hand and wraps his other arm around your waist, snugging you tight back against his chest. He nudges his nose against the shell of your ear, smelling you again, and you jerk away, pulling another rumbling chuckle from deep in his chest. 

He makes a little clucking sound with his mouth and the stallion moves forward in a fast, rocking walk that has you swaying back against his chest unconsciously. Atop the stallion, you have no choice but to see that the village has fallen. Bodies litter the alleys and streets, blood staining the sand red in puddles where they lay. He steers the stallion through the village like he knows it, headed back the direction from where the horde came, and you’re surprised to see others following suit. 

In all, about a dozen men end up following the stallion out of the village, sat atop mighty mounts, their saddlebags laden with whatever valuables they could find in the village. That no one bothered to disassemble Jakkor’s throne draws a wry huff from somewhere in your throat. All of his pride for a chair adorned in garish colored glass that wasn’t worth the effort of taking.

The village is smoldering, the wet wood throwing dark, thick smoke as it burns, and you find yourself covering your face as you ride through the last of it. Coughing against the burn of it in your lungs as he nudges the stallion with his heels to spur him on. You don’t see a soul alive that’s not on horseback.

At the outskirts, he draws up the stallion with a pull on the reins, turning it so you’re facing the rest of the men. You force yourself to match their gazes as they all look at you with curiosity, and you realize then that none of them have taken a captive. You mean to turn back to look at the man behind you, your brow drawing in confusion. Assuming that the taking of captive women must be a staple of their raids, if he had chosen to take you. 

He’s fiddling with something behind you though, not paying you any attention even as you can feel his strong heartbeat through his armor against your back. You find your chills are abating a little as the sky above starts to clear. As if nature had accompanied the horde in their raid and was retreating along with them now that the pillage was complete. 

He reaches from behind you then, pulling a damp piece of fabric against your face, and you lurch instinctively. Pushing back against his chest, jerking your head to avoid the press of fabric against your mouth. Memories flooding you of gags, tied tightly over your mouth - 

\- but he stills you with a firm hand on jaw before tying the dark shroud he had been wearing before over your nose and mouth. Loosely, knotted at your temple and not obstructing your eyes. The wind gusts again, carrying a thick cloud of smoke over you and the riders, and you gasp a breath through the wet shroud, and then exhale raggedly. Finding it a filter for the smoke, and eventually, you realize dimly, the sand. You touch at his wrist, silently, in acknowledgement and if he recognizes the gesture for the gratitude that it is, he doesn’t show it.

He gathers the reins in hand and speaks over your head to the other riders in a language you can’t understand, all of whom are still watching you with barely contained intrigue on their faces. They converse back and forth, presumably discussing the results of the raid though you can’t understand a word they’re saying, and it occurs to you slowly that he (Thor, you remind yourself after a moment of wracking your brain), is leading the discussion. That his stallion is standing apart from the group. That he is in a position to lead the horde. 

The discussion ends when Thor pulls the stallion around to face the direction from where they first rode and nudges him forward with a squeeze of his knees that you can feel against the backs of yours. The stallion moves forward into a trot, and Thor’s arm tightens around your waist as the group sets out across the sand. 

The other riders remain back, spreading out in a fan-shaped flank of Thor and his stallion, and you find your brain struggling to understand what you’re being shown. 

Tales were told in every culture of the horse warlords of the desert. You’d heard stories of them as a child and even here in your time in the village. There were several different clans throughout the world, but the story was always the same. Raiders who pillaged the countryside, taking what they wanted with brutal force and impossible strength thanks to their horses. Nomadic camps that traveled through the desert with parties sent out to hunt or raid as needed, always led by a singular rider. _The_ rider of the clan. 

As you look back and up at Thor’s face, bewildered, your mind trips and spins on this remembered knowledge. On what it means. 

“A-are you - “ you ask, surprised when Thor hears you over the wind and glances down at you. The corner of his mouth turning up like he knows your question and is humored by it. 

As he spurs the stallion into a gallop, you find yourself slipping back into yourself. Away from the hard rock of the horse’s gait from its hooves pounding on sand, away from the delighted whoops and shouts from the other riders behind you, a signal of a successful raid. 

Thor lets out a whoop of his own, booming and powerful and full of thrill, as he urges the stallion forward, chasing after something you can’t see. Freedom, maybe. Home. 

As your mind folds slowly, dutifully in on itself, protecting you from reality, you think to yourself that you cannot expect him to be a good man. But that you hope at least that he was truthful with you, before. When he said he would end your suffering if you asked. 

You gallop towards the setting sun with Thor against your back and a dozen riders whooping behind you, and you let your hands wrest on where Thor’s arm is clutched securely around your waist. Taking in the earthy scent of him before the whipping wind can carry it away and grounding yourself in it. Knowing, somehow, in that moment, that he will not let you fall, and closing your eyes to the feeling of it. 


	2. Chapter 2

Time loses meaning with every mile of desert that disappears beneath the horde, flashing out of your sight in an instant in a hard thunder of hoofbeats on the sand. You try to stay alert the first few miles, on edge for some possible incoming threat even with the strong band of Thor’s arm around your waist and the strong beat of his heart through this chestplate that tells you there are probably few things on earth that could touch him now. Galloping across the desert, surrounded by his band of riders, saddlebags heavy with the pillages of their conquest and raucous screams of victory carried from their lips on the wind. **  
**

The fabled dominance of the horse tribes makes sense to you as you finally give in. Exhausted. Abandoning the effort to hold yourself off of Thor’s lap, your muscles vicing in pain from the effort as the motion of the stallion’s sweeping gait knocks you back against his chest again and again. Letting yourself at last slump against him and letting your body rock along with his in time with the rhythmic hoofbeats of the stallion.

You’ve never traveled so far in all your days. Not so quickly. Not with such explosive power and so little effort. 

Your journey to the village, away from your home and into the piercing gaze of Jakkor was a death march. A slow, torturous trek across rolling desert, your hands and feet bound loosely together as the sun scorched the earth and everything on it. It had taken weeks. You’d wondered, back then, if you’d even survive the journey at all. You had wished death upon yourself near the end, as the sun rose over the glistening dunes and your body ached and burned. 

You know not where Thor is taking you, nor what life awaits you there, but at least, you think as the back of your head knocks gently against his shoulder, you will get there quickly. 

The sun sets slowly across the cloudless sky, taking its warmth with it as it dips at last below the horizon. Casting the desert in a ray of brilliant gold and fire red as it gives one last flare of light, before the landscape shifts into shadows and blues. 

Any hopes of setting up camp are dashed when a brief break to water the horses ends nearly as soon as it begins, the riders re-mounting without much fuss and continuing on with no apparent intention of stopping for the night. Traveling at brisk trot instead of a gallop now, as the horses’ nostrils flare and sweat darkens the broad arch of their great necks. 

With the sun goes the last of the life in you, and as the moon begins to rise, brilliant and beaming over the ocean of sand, you find yourself fading. Your eyelids weighing as your head begins to nod against your chest. Gripping weakly at Thor’s arm around your waist as you feel yourself begin to surrender to the pull of exhaustion. Warning him without words, and you feel the nudge of his cheek against your ear, like he hears you. 

His grip tightens around your waist, and the horde thunders on into the night. 

The night passes in a hazy blur. Restless, shallow bouts of sleep punctuated by bleary moment of waking. Swirls of the blanket of stars overhead and the glow of the moon reflecting off the infinite expanse of barren landscape. A mess of shadows and distance and frigid air that has you aching numbly for the familiar scorch of the desert sun. 

You drink when a flask is pressed to your lips and chew when food is pushed pushed past them,pieces of tough, dried meat that make your mouth flush with saliva at the first taste, the shroud tucked down under your chin, but otherwise drift through time as you breach the surface of consciousness and then fall back under. 

Thor is a source of roaring warmth, even as the temperature in the air drops through the night, and you find yourself shivering against him. Barely resisting turning from where you’re perched on the front of his saddle and root the tip of your nose into the heat you can feel radiating at the base of his throat. Delirium an intoxicating thing as the cold air and your exhaustion muddle your mind and chill you to the bone. 

The band travels through the night. Steady and side by side, alternating between a resting walk and a brisk trot as the moon slips across the sky and you shiver beneath Thor’s arm. 

You feel everything as your mind slips from you. Your muscles bunch and ache as you rock in the saddle and your stomach sours with want. Needing more food and more water and wanting desperately to feel nothing at all. 

Your cracked lips part on a sound that catches in your throat, shivering back against Thor’s chest, and his hang tightens around your hip like he heard. 

You think you hear him say something, quiet and distant over your head, but it carries away on the cold breeze. His hand pulses around your hip once more, and he dips his head until his mouth brushes against your ear. 

“Rest,” he says, his voice pitching low, and you wonder as you blink out hazily into the dark, barren wasteland if you dreamed it. 

You rouse at the sound of a shout. A piercing thing, booming through the crisp air, startling you in the saddle. Ripping a pained sound from you when you muscles vice in sharp protest, leaning against Thor’s arm around your waist to keep you centered on the saddle. 

Another whoop from the riders, and then Thor is shouting too. A chorus rises up as your ears ring and your mind whirls. Struggling to make sense of the world around you that’s changed - the sun that’s peaking up at the edge of the horizon, the gentle warmth rising on the breeze - as Thor spurs the stallion forward on charging gallop. 

When your eyes adjust to the morning light and your heart kickstarts at the explosion of horse hooves beneath you as the band surges ahead, you see what they’re driving towards. What’s caused the riders to spark with life and urge their horses into a sprint.

A settlement up ahead. A cluster of tents and structures, a brilliant white against the barren, red sprawl of the landscape. 

You feel more than see Thor’s teeth bare in a smile, somewhere over your head. He lets out another whoop, deafening and triumphant, and you know. 

You know, as the band flies across the sand like a serpent, pluming up a storm of dust in their wake, that you’ve made it. You’ve survived the journey and this...this is home. For Thor and the riders. And now you. 

This is home. 

They gallop past the outer rings of the settlement, past what appear to be livestock pens and a few people tending to them, and into the center of the camp. People emerge from every corner, ducking out from under tent flaps and into the rising sunlight, smiles bright on their faces as they welcome the band home. 

There are scattered cheers and shouts as Thor guides the stallion to the center square of the villages and then pulls up on the reins hard. The other riders follow suit, stopping their mounts abruptly in the center of the town square, a large empty space surrounded by tents and linen structures. 

Nausea grips at the back of your throat, your mouth filling with saliva in a way that signals trouble ahead, and you find yourself gripping at Thor’s arm around your waist with weak fingers. A desperate, silent warning. 

Thor dismounts in one smooth motion, as easy as breathing, and turns to reach for you. You tip towards him immediately, going spineless as soon as the support of his body behind yours disappears, and he gets his arms around you just in time to stop you from dropping from the stallion’s back like a stone.

He sets you down, trying to get your feet underneath you to stand, but your knees buckle the moment they hit the ground. He goes to lift you again but your stomach lurches and you scramble. Shoving at him with all the strength you can muster, which isn’t much, until he releases you. Lets you crumble to your knees as you claw the shroud from your face, and the moment your knees hit the sand, your stomach seizes, and you double over as your stomach expels its contents all over the desert floor. 

Commotion continues around you, horses stamping their hooves near your face and the feet of people gathering in to greet the riders filling your vision from your vantage point curled up on the ground. 

You’re aware enough to be grateful for the apparent lack of interest in you, conscious enough to find vomiting nearly on Thor’s feet mortifying. 

Big hands pull you to your feet soon after, and your muscles scream. Rigid with pain as they’re forced into sudden motion after being locked up from disuse. You make a terrible sound, one like a wounded animal, and strong arms scoop you up. Spinning the world around you as your stomach rolls once more and you barely fight down the urge to vomit again. 

Someone - it must be Thor - is carrying you with long-strided steps. You don’t know to where, you don’t know what’s happening or where you are, and a choked sob lodges itself in your throat. Pathetic and raw as tears well up in your eyes. 

“I want to sleep,” you cry. Just a whimper as your chest starts to sputter on rising emotion. “Please, I just want to sleep.” 

The world dims, goes dark in an instant, and it takes you a delirious moment to realize you’re inside a tent. You’re lowered onto a soft surface and the arms wrapped around you disappear as Thor stands. You turn onto your side and curl in on yourself. Your body riding out waves of pain and nausea as you grip weakly at the softness beneath you. Trying to ground yourself to keep the room from spinning. 

You have no idea what happens as you lose track of time and space. Focusing on pulling shaking breaths into your lungs and then pushing them back out. Feeling like you’re dying, slowly, as your body surrenders to the stress of the last day all at once in a riptide of frayed nerves and raw emotion. Leaving you a shaking, shivering mess. 

Someone - Thor? - comes and finds you, pulling you onto your back with a gentle hand, and you find yourself groaning and trying to pull away. 

“I want to sleep,” you whimper, your teeth chattering. “Please.” 

But they grip at your shoulders and lifts you then, until you’re propped half-upright. And you’d struggle if you had the strength, but then a warm cup is pressed to your lips and the smell of tea floods your senses, and you find yourself gulping it down desperately. Your throat raw and your stomach empty. 

You’re laid down after and you curl back onto your side. Feeling the cool trickle as tears finally spill over down your cheeks and make tracks through the dust coated there. 

The soft drop of canvas announces their departure from the tent, and in the following silence, you allow yourself to cry. 

The tea you’d been given was laced with something powerful, because you sleep. Feverishly, but you sleep. Waking at every light brush of the breeze or distant shout from the center square, on edge and fearful, but quickly surrendering again to fall back under. Exhaustion and fear war around the edges of your mind as you startle and rest, startle and rest, shivering from your frayed nerves as your body surrenders to utter exhaustion and helplessness. 

In your moments of wakefulness, you learn that you’re inside a tent. Large and airy, with a sprawling and thick bedroll laid out in the center of it that you’re curled up on. The front flap of the tent is tied back, and through the wide opening, you can see out. 

The area outside the tent is open, with some vague linen structures in the distance beyond it. In the center of the space is a ring of stone, great boulders with flecks that sparkle in the afternoon sun. You wonder dimly if it’s a well, or some kind of pit. 

You catch glimpses of life in the camp as the sun travels across the sky, blinking blearily at the glare of the sun reflecting off the hard packed sand outside. Horses mill about, unsaddled and seemingly unrestrained. Dropping their heads to sniff at the sand and root around for shoots of grass, snorting at the dust that clouds up around their noses. 

People move about with purpose, going this way and that with their arms full of kindling or clay jugs sloshing with water or children perched on each hip. Some cast you a curious glance where you lay, curled up on the bed roll in the back of his great tent, but most appear too busy. 

In and out you fade. Gasping awake at the sound of snarls and snaps as two dogs get into it just outside your tent, breaking up and yipping their different ways when someone dumps a bucket of water in their direction and shouts at them. Dreaming in flashes of heat and light and waking suddenly to the silent, hulking presence of someone at your side. Lifting your head with their palm around the back of your head and tilting a cup to your lips, until cool water slides past your cracked lips and down your throat and you groan brokenly. Gripping at the back of your skull to stop you when you chase the water as the cup is taken from you, searching blindly for it, swallowing down a desperate noise. 

Thor is sometimes there when you wake, and sometimes he’s not. You blink awake once to see him leaning against the great wooden pillar at the center of the tent, watching you with his arms crossed over his chestplate. His face twisted as if deep in thought. You flinch at the sight of him and expect him to join you, to lay down beside you, but when you blink your eyes open again, a minute or an hour later, you don’t know, you find him gone. 

The day passes in a blur of heat and sleep and aching pain, as you watch the shadows change and grow as the hours pass. You manage to make it outside of the tent once, nearly crawling as every muscle in your lower half cramps violently, to relieve yourself outside of the tent. Ducking your head to avoid curious stares before limping back into the tent and curling back down on the bed. Rubbing your sweaty palms against your thighs, onto the silken green dress you’re still wearing. Schooling your breathing to be steady and sure as you grit your teeth and cling to the bed through waves of despair and sour illness. Determined to ride it out. To make it through this. 

You don’t intend to take Thor up on his offer. Not yet. Not before you know what your life will be here.

When night falls, a small fire is lit in the center of the boulder ring outside the tent, and you understand. People begin to gather around it, coming from beyond your view from inside the tent and stooping low and working over it. The smell of roasting meat slowly begins to filter into the tent and your stomach rumbles. 

You try to think when you ate last and vaguely recall some small bites on the journey, pressed to your lips by Thor’s fingers, and before that, it had been a full day. 

The air cools as the sun retreats beyond the horizon and the oncoming chill rouses you a little. Stiffens up your spine and clears the edges of your consciousness from the feverish haze that has been hanging over you. You push yourself upright on the bedroll, deep inside Thor’s tent, and watch as the crowd around the firepit grows. 

The ground feels solid beneath you for the first time in a day. 

Even from a distance, the atmosphere is one of congeniality and joy. People embrace each other in greeting and call to each other as they approach the crowd. Children sprint around and scream with delight, chased by playful dogs, and the figures of those stooped with age are shown to worn looking stumps of petrified wood that are pulled up to the ring of fire to sit. Song breaks out in a language you can’t understand and fades out a few minutes later, the conversation and laughter from the growing group ebbing and flowing like an ocean tide. 

Food is prepared over the fire, tended to by everyone and no one, a shared responsibility. Large platters are passed around from person to person, filled with things you can’t make out in the growing shadow, but people grab handfuls of whatever it is as the platters pass and bring the pieces to their mouths to nibble. 

It smells heavenly. 

It’s mystifying, seeing the congregation gather in warm contentedness around a shared meal. The clear community of it all is foreign to you entirely, your memory turning on the isolation of your former village. Of the cold detachment the villagers had for you and the performative affection they showed to Jakkor. That village had been every family for themselves, a group of people with nothing in common but geography and a desperate will to survive the treacherous desert, but this...this is something else entirely. 

You wonder, chewing on your lower lip to distract from the achy twist of your empty belly, if these people will have any kindness to spare for you. The warmth emanating from the gathering outside is plain to see and easily felt, even as an outsider sitting a hundred paces away in a dark tent, and you wonder, against every ounce of your better judgement, if this time will be different. 

Hope is a dangerous and stupid thing, but you feel it take root somewhere behind your ribs at the sudden sight of Thor making his into view, greeting those around him apparent geniality. His back is to you, so you can’t see more than the broad of his shoulders and the setting sun reflecting off the gold of his hair, but you see his people’s faces light at the sight of him. Bright and sincere.

Dangerous and stupid, yes, you think. Delicate and foolish, for certain. But it feels better in your belly than fear, and you wrap your arms around yourself and watch as the fire grows. Reaching high into the darkening sky on a wild, flickering flame that is reflected in the smiles and laughs of the people surrounding it. Something wild, but warm. 

The night cools as the sun dips below the horizon, and you find yourself starting to shiver as the fire in the pit at the village center smokes and fades. You pull bedding over your lap and run your fingertips over the stitched patterns in it as the crowd around it disperses slowly, people standing and embracing each other before departing from the flickering firelight. Into the expanse of tents and huts that expand throughout the camp, finding their way easily in the growing dark like they know the path somewhere deep in their mind. 

You watch as Thor stands from his spot near the fire and stretches, before his hand drops to a child that’s standing next to him. His palm covering the boy’s head and jostling it gently in apparent affection before he turns towards you. 

The shape of him is otherworldly as he makes his way to the tent, broad and hulking, the roaring bonfire behind him casting him in a dark lengthening shadow that grows with every step towards where you lay. Curled up on the expanse of his bedroll, tucked back in his great chambers. Shivering in the cooling night air and at the sight of him, lit in dim, flickering lantern light overhead. 

He ducks through the tent flap, standing to full height once inside, and your heart tightens in your chest instinctively. He curls his fingers in a familiar way around where the flap is tied up at the corner, and it falls. Dropping down into place and cutting off your view of the feast still carrying on outside. 

Silence descends in the tent, and your heart roars in your ears. 

When he turns to face you, you see something tucked under one of his arms, and then the smell hits you. Warm, roasted meat, curling up in tendrils of steam and making your belly twist and grumble at the scent of it. You find yourself sitting up on the bed, pushing yourself up on your elbows and then more until your the skin on the insides of your thighs burns, a sharp, stinging pain that you push down as you’re drawn instinctively to food you so desperately need. 

Thor moves to the bed easily, his gait rolling and slow and comfortable. Like he’s a king and this is his chambers. 

It occurs to you, dumbly, that it’s exactly that, as Thor toes off his boots. He holds the bowl out to you, made of worn, warm clay, and it takes a second for you to realize he means for you to take it. 

He’s barely paying you any mind, reaching underneath his arms to work the fastenings of his chestplate, and you find yourself transfixed. Holding the platter in your lap as saliva fills your mouth heat rising from it, but you can’t take your eyes from him as he disrobes. Feeling like a fawn in a meadow, come upon by a predator. 

He pulls off the leather fastenings around his forearms and drops them to the ground without a thought and then tugs at his tunic, ringed with sweat under the arms, over his head and drops that too. 

The sight of his bare chest jolts you. The expanse of it, broad and darkened by the sun. Covered by a light dusting of hair and muscle bunching and moving beneath skin as he reaches up to turn a small dial on the lantern to dim the flame. 

His hands fall to his hips then, tugging at the knotted material below his waist, but you feel his eyes on yours. 

His brow draws, and you feel your gut instantly sour. Fear a fast-acting poison that’s sharp in your belly. 

You’ve done something wrong. 

He’s frowning at you, the flickering lantern light illuminating the downturn of his mouth, and you wonder if he regrets you.

You swallow heavily. Barely resisting the urge to flinch away from his gaze. Your mind whirling uselessly trying to figure out what you’ve done. How you can fix it. Half expecting him to stride across the tent and take your throat in his hand. 

“Eat,” he says. Confused more than angry, from the bewildered lilt to his voice, which stuns you with it’s depth. Still unaccustomed to the way it moves the air when he speaks. 

You look down to the bowl that’s steaming in your lap, then back up at Thor. 

_Oh_. 

You bring a piece of meat, slippery with grease up to your lips, unable to look away from him. Worried it’s a trick. That you’ll take a bite and he’ll launch himself at you from across the tent. 

But his expression relaxes the moment you swallow your first bite, going back to the fastenings around his waist without a thought when he’s satisfied that you’re eating. 

You watch him for a lingering moment before hunger overcomes you, the first bite reaching your empty stomach and making you groan quietly as you bring another piece to your mouth and tear it between your teeth. You eat in earnest then, trying to catalogue the flavor of the roasted meat, oily and a little stringy but achingly hearty, still. More flavor that you’ve known in years, fed exclusively on dusty grains and rationed water in your time with Jakkor. 

You look up, grease dripping to your chin, when you realize that Thor is tugging down at his breeches and stepping out of them. The length of his body an immense expanse of flesh and muscle, coarse and battle-carved in a way that Jakkor never was. He pays you no mind as he kicks them free and goes to the far corner of the tent, rummaging around in the corner there until he finds what he seems to be looking for. 

He returns to you, and you feel your heart thud in your chest at the sight of him. Naked and towering. Broad shoulders tapering down to a strong waist with a strip of hair leading below - 

You tear your eyes away, feeling the back of your neck prickle with heat as Thor folds down easily onto the bed roll. His knee knocking gently against yours, and then he’s leaning over you. Warm, so warm, all bare skin and wave of earthy musk washes over you as he reaches for you. Taking up the space you give, jerking instinctively away from him as he looms over you and grips a big hand across the meat of your thigh. 

It’s quick - a strangled noise ripping from your throat as you grip frantically at the bowl in your arms, trying to back away from him on a lurch as his body covers yours and his hand on your thigh grips and pulls. An impossible strength that tugs you into his lap like you weigh no more than a wisp of a breeze. Taking the clay platter from where you are gripping it against you chest and tossing it aside without a care. Letting it thud softly on the sandy ground as he shifts his weight and settles you against him.

He ignores your flailing, easily dodging one of your knees as it reflexively kicks at him, before he pries your thighs apart and tugs again until you’re nearly fully in his lap. Laid out on your back with your rear pressed to his hips and against his waist as he arranges your shins on either side of his hips, your rumpled, silken dress shoved up around your belly.

“Stop,” he grouses after a moment, losing patience, and the strength in his voice has you laying back in defeat. Shivering and staring up at the canvas of the tent where it’s steepled up in the center of the tent. Distantly aware of the feeling of his hands softening around your thighs before they release you for a moment. 

You feel yourself slipping, going deep into yourself like the slip of molasses, waiting. Waiting for a flare of pain in your center that you know is coming.

Fingers soothe at the skin around the insides of your knees, and it takes you a moment to realize. To claw yourself back from the brink to realize that his dry fingers are touching gently at the aching insides of your thighs. Where the skin is rubbed raw and bloody from hours in the saddle. Pain sparks then, but a gentle flutter of it, not what you expect, and you blink and lift your head to see Thor bending over in the dim lantern light. His brow furrowed with concentration as he dips a finger into a small jaw in his other hand, before carefully rubbing a swirl of salve against the worst of it. 

It draws a whimper from you, reflexive and pained, and he makes a distant sound with his mouth. Focused intently on you as he carefully rubs the salve into your wounds, his fingers calloused from rein but gentle as he traces along the edges of the hurt. 

A shuddering sigh looses from your chest as the realization comes over you that this is all he wants. For now, in this moment, at least. Your chest rises and falls as the sickening shroud of panic filters slowly out, replaced with each deep lung-full of breath and the sting of every pass of Thor’s fingers against your skin. 

It’s quiet then. Thor working on one leg and then moving to the other, turning your knee carefully in his hand to reach underneath it. Soothing the balm over broken skin, his mouth turning down when another bolt of pain makes you jump against his palm and groan softly through gritted teeth. 

He works until he is satisfied, covering every inch of your aching skin with a layer of salve that tingles as it touches the air. He keeps you in his lap, his thumbs rubbing soft circles against the tops of your knees as he continues to look. Nearly squinting in the low light to see, his expression foreign to you as you try to read it. 

You wonder if he’s concerned the wounds will scar. If he’s worried about marks on his prize. If he’s disappointed in the frailty of your skin, if he’s wondering if you’re suited to being the companion of a horse lord after all, if sitting in saddle has damaged you so.

His fingers continue to move against your skin, soft, small touches, and you realize he’s looking at you. You blink back at him, your chest rising and falling as you feel the presence of him where he’s rooted between your legs. 

You know he’ll move before he does. By the look that darkens his face before he tips forward, shifting his weight underneath you and easing his upper body over yours. Holding himself above you with a palm pressed to the bedding near your head. 

The angle between you shifts and his hips slide into place against yours, nudging easily into the space between your thighs, and he lets out a low, soft sound. Looking down into your eyes as you stare up at him, his free hand gripping at the meat of your thigh. 

Your heartbeat roars, deafening, and one of your hands reaches up to grip at his wrist, where it’s braced near your shoulder. Fear and something else tripping up your spine and clutching at your lungs. 

His free hand grips at your thigh once more, his eyes closing on a slow blink when he nudges his hips to yours, before his hand comes up and rests against your sternum. Your chest heaves beneath him, nearly brushing against his bare chest as he hovers over you, as his hand travels up. Dragging slowly across your heated skin until his fingers slide around the base of your throat. 

Your hand around his wrist tightens in a spasm, your eyes darting to his, but his expression is unreadable. His eyes are dark and on your throat, where the callus of his fingers scrapes softly over the delicate skin. His fingers drift up, and up, and then slip under the leather noose of your collar. 

You startle under his hand, a soft exhale falling from your lips. You’d forgotten it was still around your neck, braided leather in a thin collar with the very short end of the rope still attached where Thor had sliced it clean through with his battle axe. One of the last remnants of your life before, knotted tightly around your neck.

Something shifts across Thor’s face and you realize it’s dissatisfaction as his brow draws and something in his jaw tightens. His eyes flick to yours, searching, and then he pushes himself up slightly. Lifting his arm that had been bracing him up against the bed and keeping him hovering over you, and bringing both hands up to your neck. 

You jolt beneath him instinctively, your hands clamping around his wrists to stop him from - 

But he pays you no mind, moving against the grip of your wrists like you’re not even there as he takes the collar in his hands. He gives a hard, short tug between his hands and you gasp as it tightens around your throat, quickly and then - 

It snaps like a brittle twig between Thor’s hands, and he pulls it from your throat so quickly that the coarse leather burns where your pulse is racing. He throws it away, off into a dark corner of the tent, and when his eyes return to yours, you feel something drop heavy in your belly. 

He’s hard. Nudging his hips up against yours, you can feel him. Pressed against the aching inner of your thigh, and fire lights along your nerves. 

He looks down at you, his nostrils flaring a little as his hand comes back to touch at the raw skin of your neck. Curling loosely around your throat where the collar had scarred the skin. Feeling the heat of it beneath his palm. 

His eyes go a little distant and that’s all the warning you get before he’s bracing a hand beside your head and ducking down to you. Curling a hand around your jaw and turning your head and nudging his nose along the line of your throat. 

His nose drags against the skin, where it’s puffy and pink in a circle around, and shivers rack up your spine. Your heart lurching so hard in your chest you’re sure he can feel it where his bare skin is pressed against the silk of your dress. 

“ _Ahh_ ,” you breathe, your head tipping back as his mouth opens over the ring of scar. Your hand comes up to clutch at him, gripping, anywhere, and settles on the thick braid of hair tied back on the back of his skull, and he groans softly as his tongue tastes the salty sweat of your throat. 

He stays there for a long moment, his body covering yours even as he holds his weight from you. Nudging his nose along the line of your jaw and then to the burn from the collar. Moving back and forth slowly, his breath hot and fanning across your sternum and up to your ear. Making your breath rattle in your chest as you grip at his hair. As something like a flame lights low in your belly and flickers along your nerve endings. 

You don’t know if this goes on for an hour or a minute, him nudging his hips gently to yours as he breathes against the skin of your neck, but at last, he pulls himself back. Giving your knee a soft pat before he lifts one of your thighs over his lap and sets you down flat back against the bedroll. Getting his knees underneath him as he groans and lays himself out beside you. 

You lay beside him in a daze. Staring up at the ceiling as your lungs slowly expand and shrink on rattling breaths, fighting desperately to stay here in the moment. To remain within yourself and not drift away. Because this was...this was…

Different. 

You don’t need to flee from this. 

Thor grunts as he settles down onto the bedroll and tips onto his side as he stretches fully along the bed. Taking up an impossible space as he lets out a low exhale and reaches for you. Getting a big hand around your waist and tugging you close. You’re helpless as you slide across the soft surface of it until your shoulder blades bump softly against his bare chest. 

The wrinkled thin of your dress is the only thing separating you from the roaring warmth of his skin as he lets out a great sigh, one of retirement and weariness as one of his thighs parts between yours and his nose nudges against the shell of your ear. 

Your heart hammers in your chest at the press of his body to yours. Fully engulfing you in his shadow as he settles down for rest. You wait for his hand around your waist to travel lower, but it curls softly around the soft edge of your hip and remains as his breathing steadies in your ear. 

You think he’s fallen under when he speaks again. Quietly, a soft whisper against the side of your throat. 

“You’ll come to the feast for food,” he says. His lips brush your neck as he speaks.”After tonight.” 

You nod after a moment, blinking in the dim, flickering lantern light. Understanding. Knowing, then, the role he needs you to play. 

The wind shifts outside, tugging at the corners of the canvas tent propped up overhead, and you take a steadying breath. Forcing your eyes shut and feeling your belly expand and shrink under the sure weight of Thor’s arm around your waist. Trying to will the hammer of your heart to match the steady, strong beat of his where it’s thumping away between your shoulder blades. 

Thor shifts a little then on a heavy sigh. Settling against you, his nose running absently down the curve of your neck like he doesn’t even mean to do it. 

“Sleep, little bug,” he murmurs. 

The smell of him covers you like a blanket, warm and dark. Richer than Jakkor, who always smelled of spiced oils that he dabbed underneath his collar. More natural. Heavier. 

You wonder, as a light draft of a breeze carries through the tent, swirling dust softly against the floor and making you curl back against the warmth of his body, if you’ll come to know the scent of him. If you’ll come to learn this man and all that he is. If this place will ever feel like home to you. If his arms ever will.

You shiver, and Thor pulls you closer. Radiating heat and strength and anchoring you. Grounding you. 

When sleep finally comes, you find that you’re not buried deep inside of yourself. You realize that you are present, there, in Thor’s arms. Feeling the rise and fall of his chest against your back and the soft, steady fan of his steady breath against your shoulder. Hearing the sounds of his rest as you settle into him in kind and match your breathing to his. 

Outside, the wind continues to blow across the desert plains, and the earth continues to turn as if nothing has changed at all. 


	3. Chapter 3

The feeling of hands on you brings you around slowly, at first. Clinging stubbornly to the comfort of your slumber, to the weight and warmth of it after such a harrowing journey. Groaning softly as the hands touch at your knees, flinching away from what must be daylight lighting behind your eyelids. Foolishly comfortable, in this place you don’t know. 

But then strong arms band beneath you, gripping you up tight, and then your world spins as you’re lifted, up - _up_ \- 

Your eyes wrench open on a gasp, startled as your body lurches instinctively, reaching for the ground, and the arms around you tighten. Your vision whirls as you try to right yourself to no avail, the soft light of the early morning blending with the ruddy sand on the ground in a swirl of warm earthen tones. 

“Stop,” comes a gruff command near your ear, and you do. Turning slowly to face the person holding you and feeling your heart splat against your ribs at the realization that it’s Thor. His eyebrows raised on his face in a way that seems to ask you if you’re done. 

“Oh,” you say, stupidly. Tongue feeling too big for your mouth. 

He’s carried you outside the tent but has stopped, presumably waiting for you to stop flailing like a beached fish. He shifts your weight in his arms, carrying you like a bride, and you feel a flush creep down to your toes. Aware all at once of the size of him. Of how small you are tucked against his chest. “What are - “ Your mind can’t make sense of what’s happening. Where you are. 

Once he’s satisfied that you’ve accepted your fate, he begins to move again, grunting a little. “Your wounds are worse this morning,” he says, and something about his tone strikes a pang of fear in your belly. 

He’s taking you across the encampment, through the center square, and your gaze goes beyond, past the outer ring of paddocks and lean-tos, to the sandy dunes beyond. To the distant horizon of open space and sand and peril. 

Your hand spasms unconsciously, gripping at his tunic. “They will heal,” you say, your voice tight in your throat as he marches on with you. The image springing to your mind, unbidden, of him bringing you to the edge of camp and dumping you on the sandy ground and telling you to begin walking. To leave. To exile. “I will heal quickly - please - “ 

He stops again, prompting you to look up at him, feeling your heart racing in your ears. Panic and confusion a sour thing in your gut, so early in the morning, so all at once. Realizing how blessed you’ve been in your short time at the camp and how wrenching the prospect of losing it feels. 

The will to live is a roaring thing in you, you realize. Strange and suffocating, and you can’t stop the words spilling from your lips as you look up at him in the soft morning light. 

“Please - you needn’t - I’ll mend - ” 

His expression twists, realization dawning slowly, and settles somewhere near incredulous. “Do you think I mean to kill you, little bug?” he asks, and when you can only stare at him, silently, your heart thudding painfully behind your ribs, the corner of his mouth turns up. 

“I am…” you say slowly, fear bleeding out into a queasy sense of embarrassment. “I am - damaged. I am no use to you if - ” 

He hasn’t touched you. All you can think in that moment is that he hasn’t touched you, and this must be the reason why.

His brows inch up on his face again, watching you for a moment, and then he chuckles. A dark sound in the cool morning air, shaking his head. He moves again, shifting you in his arms. “You must think us truly savage,” he murmurs, his eyes cutting to yours, the corners of his mouth still turned up like he can’t quite make sense of you. 

You force your fingers to loosen from his tunic, feeling awkward in his arms. Foolish, as you realize his intent must not be to harm you. And that it is probably insulting to him that you thought that it was. 

“I’ve..known nothing else,” you murmur. Half expecting him to dump you to the sand and leave you there for speaking out of turn. 

He’s watching you, you can feel his gaze on the side of your face where your chin is tucked down, and he makes a contemplative noise. Like he hadn’t considered that. 

“Well,” he says, his voice a touch softer. Shifting you again in his arms, and you wonder if you feel heavy to him. Likely not, you decide. “That will not be your life here.” You look up at him and catch his eyes before he looks away and ahead. Starting to walk with you again. “You are hurt, so I am taking you to a healer. Zhaf’s tent is along the outskirts.” 

Your mouth opens to reply, but you force it shut. Sinking back into the cradle of his arms and biting down the urge to ask to be allowed to walk, even as people begin to appear from inside their tents, yawning behind their palms and shouting greetings to Thor as he goes. Gawking at you, being carried like a child. 

Morning is just beginning to break across the camp, the sun peeking up from behind the easternly sand dunes and casting bright bands of light across the tents and structures pitched across the dusty landscape. Conversation starts to pepper up, quiet in the hushed early morning, as neighbors come out of their shelters and greet each other for the day.

Many speak to Thor, calling out greetings that he accepts with a nod and a word or two in response. It’s strange to see people gravitate towards him, turning to face him when they step from their tent and see him, their faces lighting in some show of affection at the sight of him. 

You find no fear on their faces, as Thor carries you and your eyes catch on every person you pass. No fear, and no performative deference either, and it makes your head spin a little with awe. That is all Jakkor ever had. Fear, and performative deference that felt bitter on your tongue and that reflected in every interaction he had with his villagers. 

It makes you wonder what kind of leader Thor must be to inspire such affection in his people, plain on their faces when they look upon him. What kind of man. 

He moves with purpose, walking in long legged strides and keeping you tucked against his chest, and you find yourself looking up at him. Your heart doing a strange thing when he catches you looking and snorts a soft sound in response. 

Zhaf meets you at the entrance to her tent, squinting against the sun, a grin on her face at the sight of you. Well, not you, you think, watching her eyes meet Thor’s. She greets him warmly and then turns to you, her eyebrows lifting at the sight of you in his arms. 

She is tall and broad shouldered, dressed in rust colored breeches and a soft linen tunic that is rolled up around her shoulders. Her hair is the color of ink and tied back in a braid, and she rubs a hand over it as she looks at you. Assessing you. 

She says something to Thor that you cannot understand, something clearly about you, and he appears to agree on a soft huff that sounds a like a laugh. 

“Welcome,” she says to you in the common tongue, smiling. “I’ve been told that you’ve had quite a journey.”

It’s strange, being addressed so directly, and you find yourself looking up at Thor for a moment, before meeting her eyes again. Unsure. You feel absolutely foolish to be still curled up in his arms like a child, but a small part of you worries that if he puts you down, he will leave. 

As if reading your thoughts, he pats your knee and stoops to place you on the ground. Catching you with a hand on your elbow, tugging you upright when your knees wobble predictably at the feeling of solid earth beneath you. 

Thor and Zhaf have a conversation over your head, Thor keeping a hand on your elbow like he thinks you’ll topple if he doesn’t. You wonder if he might be right as your knees tremble beneath the weight of you. 

Something is decided then, and Thor touches the small of your back, before taking a step back. You very nearly follow him, but stop yourself. Looking to Zhaf and then back to Thor. 

“Zhaf will care for you,” Thor says, nodding to her. 

It occurs to you that Thor must have other duties to attend to other than holding your hand through your discomfort, and you force your legs to strengthen. Nodding to Thor, not wanting to be a burden, and he gives one look to Zhaf, and then turns to go.

Something aches, hollow inside of you, but when you turn back to Zhaf, she’s watching you with an expression like she understands. Kind and open. 

She gives you a moment to look over your shoulder to where Thor had gone, and then she takes a step back herself, and guides you inside her tent. 

There’s a bed in the center of the tent, narrow and slightly elevated and covered in a light sheet, and Zhaf pats it with her hand as she turns from you. “Sit,” she says, going to the back line of the tent where there are shelves upon shelves of jarred items.

You carefully lower yourself down and sit on the edge of it, feeling the skin between your thighs catch and ache, and chew on your lip. Touching at the dusty silk of your dress in your lap, resisting the urge to look out the tent entrance to where Thor is long gone. 

She returns to you with three items in her hands and kneels beside you. “Lay back,” she says, quirking a gentle smile at you when she sees your apparent nerves. She pats your knee in approval when you do, shifting awkwardly back up the bed until your head is near the top, clasping your hands together over your belly and watching her as she arranges the jars along the ground beside her knee and reaches for you. 

Her hands are soft, impossibly so, and cool, and the feeling is not unpleasant as she touches at the insides of your knees. “Ah,” she says, glancing there and then back up at you. “That looks quite painful, _zheana_ ,” she says, sounding regretful. “He should have brought you to me when you first arrived.” 

You find yourself shrugging a little, turning your head so you can watch her. “He tended to me last night,” you say, softly, not sure why you feel the need to speak in his defense. 

Zhaf makes a noncommittal sound and props up on her knees to lean over you. “Breathe through this,” she says, her eyes meeting yours for a moment, and then she begins to carefully pull your knees apart. 

The pain is immediate and blinding, jolting up your thighs and gripping up your spine as your bloodied, stickied skin slowly pulls apart from itself. You lurch under her hands, a ragged sound ripping from your lungs before you press a palm over your open mouth, and she nods, like she knows. 

“Breathe,” she reminds you as she works, touching with cool fingertips to pull the skin apart as she spreads your thighs, inch by excruciating inch, as pain flares over you like white light. 

It’s over soon, your chest rising and falling rapidly when she pats at your knee again to tell you she’s through. “Good,” she tells you, her eyes focused on the raw and bloodied skin of your inner thighs, tracing the outer edges with the tip of a finger. When her eyes meet yours again, she quirks you another smile. “It looks worse than it is, _zheana_. You’ll mend with some care.” 

She takes one of the clay jars from the ground and lifts the lid. Inside is a salve, green and flecked with herb, and the smell, oddly, makes your stomach grumble. She laughs, scooping a generous portion onto her fingers, and begins to soothe it into your aching skin. “We’ll feed you once this is done,” she says. “You look like you could use some feeding.” 

She works on you for some time, following the green salve with an oily one that shines on her fingertips before she places soft gauzy fabric against each inner thigh and binds it to your leg with carefully wrapped linen strips. She places the lids back on the clay jars and rubs her hands together, working the last of the salves into her palms. 

“Let them breathe in the evening,” she says, patting your knee once more as she pushes herself to her feet and moves to return the jars to the shelf. “I will have provisions brought to your tent - wrap them in the day time so you can move freely, and then let them rest in open air as you sleep. In a week, you’ll be whole again.” 

It feels better, immensely so, especially when she extends a hand to you and pulls you to your feet. You groan softly, testing your weight on your feet for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, and reveling in the healthy stretch of cold muscles as you lift up onto your toes and rock back on your heels. 

“Thank you,” you say, meaning it. Turning to find her organizing her inventory in a quiet, restless kind of way. “That...I feel much better.” 

Zhaf comes up behind you and claps you softly on the shoulder, good naturedly. “Good,” she says, throwing you a little smile. “One less discomfort for you to endure.” She looks out of the tent, into the camp, where the sun is heating by the minute. “Are you hungry?” 

_Always_ , you think, but simply nod to her, feeling a little awkward as your stomach flips and growls again. 

“Good,” Zhaf says again, nodding back, seemingly pleased with your answer. “Let’s see what we can find.” 

Zhaf moves through the camp with a familiarity that speaks to many years spent, slowing her pace when she sees you hobbling behind her on aching legs. 

The camp is up now, fully awake and moving now that the sun is moving up in the sky. There is a pleasant busyness to it all, people moving this way and that without appearing rushed, their arms full of textiles or bundles of wood or in the case of one young boy, chickens. Several loud, flailing chickens. 

People greet Zhaf and she responds in kind, exchanging warm greetings as you pass people in the roads that wind through the camp. Some ignore you all together, which is just as well, but others echo the greetings to you, smiling kindly when you struggle to repeat it back to them. Unsure of what you’re even saying, but they seem pleased with the effort, and you find the interactions sticking somewhere in your mind as you struggle to keep up with Zhaf. 

You reach a pavilion soon, a grand structure that is pitched high overhead, the linen panels on each side rolled to the top and secured in place, revealing a shaded, open expanse that is full of tables and busied people. Every flat surface is covered with food, and your eyes widen at the sight as Zhaf approaches one of the tables around the outer edge of the pavilion and calls out a greeting, that everyone in the tent echoes back in good spirit. 

She engages them in conversation that goes over your head, so you stand behind and slightly to the side of her, and simply allow yourself to look. 

It’s more food than you’ve ever seen in one place in your entire lifetime. Some you recognize, and some is foreign to you - bowls overflowing with shiny, round fruits and tall mounds of husked grains. 

Everyone in the pavilion is working, the atmosphere amiable and routine as one woman swirls a large bowl in her arms, water sloshing over the sides and down to the sandy ground, as she washes something you cannot see, something dark and hard looking as they swirl around the interior of the bowl. Another is slicing tubular vegetables, a vibrant green, into even slices and pushing the slices to the side as she grabs another. Another still is sitting cross legged on a linen sheet, grinding a fine grain with a pestle and mortar, her hands covered in a fine, white powder. 

It is decadence, to you. The amount alone is staggering, enough to feed your old village two times over, but the variety you see nearly takes your breath away. You’d eaten small portions of dry, tasteless grains, twice a day if you were lucky, while with Jakkor. Luckier still if he’d given you a drink of water to wash it all down. This is...more food than you imagined the world even held. 

When you look to Zhaf, you find her watching you, her lips curving around the edges of a smile. “Are you alright?” she asks, her tone a little teasing, and you nod, unable to stop the responding smile spreading across your face in return. Caught staring at this wonderful bounty. 

She has a clay bowl tucked under one arm, filled with something small and dark and wrinkled, and she hands you a heavy piece of something. A slice of a fruit that is big as your head, a soft orange center gleaming with fresh juices around the rough bark of its outer crust. Your stomach gurgles, loudly, and she laughs. Nodding at you when you hesitate, as if to tell you to go ahead. 

Your first bite is ecstacy. Sweet, floral flavor explodes over your tongue as you bite into it, juices filling your mouth and dripping down your chin. You groan, unable to stop yourself, and Zhaf laughs again. You take two more bites before you can even think, chewing the dense flesh and shivering as you swallow. Feeling goosebumps prick up along your arms at the rush of sweetness on your tongue, even in the growing heat. It brings something to mind, a distant ghost of a memory of your childhood. Of sucking on a sweet treat your father had brought you from his travels, telling you to savor it as you’d nearly wept with delight. 

“What is this?” you ask, feeling slightly winded when you look up to Zhaf, who is watching you with a kind, if amused, expression. You chase the juice on your lips with your tongue and shiver again at the sticky flavor. 

“ _Yot_ ,” she says in her native tongue, pausing as if trying to remember something. “Uh...melon?” 

You had heard the word before, somewhere, and you find yourself nodding. Zhaf shakes the bowl in her arm and nods to the contents. “These are _kimikh_. Dates,” the common tongue word coming to her more easily this time. 

“Do you - “ you extend the melon slice to her but she declines with a soft laugh. 

“For you,” she says. “We can share the _kimikh_. Do you prefer to sit? How are your legs?” 

You shake your head quickly, licking your lips again. Forcing yourself to bring the melon to your lips slowly, and take a measured bite. “I, uh,” you say, returning her smile with a little hesitance. “I prefer to, uh, walk. It feels good to stand.” 

Being asked to share your opinion is entirely foreign to you, and you find it difficult to do so, but Zhaf nods agreeably, as if your answer was a perfectly reasonable one. She takes a date from her bowl and tears the end of it with her teeth. “Let’s go, then.” 

Zhaf leads you through the camp, going slowly to accommodate the hitch in your step, and chewing slowly on dates as she does. Working the flesh from the pit with her teeth and then pocketing the pit into a fold of her tunic once it’s cleaned, pointing out areas of the camp that she thinks you should know. 

“That,” she says, indicating back with her head towards the pavilion you just left as she leads you on. “That was the _hadaen_ _okre_. It is where all food is prepared for the camp. The nightly feast is communal but if you have hunger through the day, simply visit the _hadaen_ _okre_ and ask. You will not be denied, assuming you do not eat more than your own share.” 

You chew softly on the the last of the melon cupped in your palms and look over at her. “What was there,” you say. “How long would all that food last?” 

Zhaf smiles, popping another date into her mouth. “The day.” 

You nearly miss a step. “All of that,” you say, turning to look back and see the pavilion standing tall, bustling with activity. “You would eat all of that in a single day?” 

She shrugs, laughing a little. “We are a hungry people, _zheana_. How do you think we grow so big and strong?” 

You follow her as she turns down a road to the left, taking you past rows of tents of pitched canvas, and when she holds out a handful of dates to you, you take them. You’re nearing the eastern edges of the camp now, and the smell of animal grows as you cross the dusty sand. 

Pens come into view as you round another corner, marked with two rows of rope tied between equally spaced posts, and inside of them, you see goats that are bleating grumpily in the heating sun. You hear the sound of some fowl, a low pitched squawk coming from a building that’s a few hundred paces out past the pens. 

You step forward, your curiosity piqued by the goats who have gathered along the rope fence line to stare at you. You hold out your hand and one of them nibbles softly on your fingertip, teething gently at the melon juice sticking to your skin, and something like a laugh bubbles up in your chest. 

Zhaf stands beside you and indicates down towards the building beyond. “ _Ogat_. Where animals are butchered.” 

You look up, pulling your hand back from the goat’s mouth. 

Zhaf nudges you with an elbow. “Not good to visit while you are eating,” she says, and you follow when she turns back the way you came. 

“Where, uh,” you say, forcing your pace to quicken to match hers. “Where are the horses?” You hadn’t seen any since you’d ridden in on them. 

Zhaf pockets another pit. “Anywhere,” she says. “Everywhere.”

“They are…loose? They are not contained?” Part of you feels like she must be teasing you. 

But Zhaf nods with another shrug. “We are their only source of food and water for fifty days. If their rider calls, they will come.” 

As if on cue, a horse comes into view as Zhaf leads you back into the center of the camp. Walking slowly, it’s head bent low to the ground. Snuffling at the sand with its nose as if rooting for shoots of grass. It is the color the sunrise after a storm, a fierce red, and Zhaf greets the horse by apparent name. 

“Jhigi,” she says warmly, and the horse lifts its head in response, snorting softly as it steps towards her. It’s ears pricked forward, expectantly. “Spoiled,” she mutters, laughing as the horse nudges at her pockets with its soft nose and then turns to you, it’s eyes lighting at the sight of the melon rind in your hand. 

“Ah ah,” Zhaf says, scolding and taking those horse’s nose in her palm, guiding it away from you. “That belongs to her, little mare.” She tears a date in half and offers a piece to the horse, who sniffs the offering for a moment, before taking it delicately between her teeth and turning to walk away. 

Zhaf laughs again and pats her on the hindquarters as she moves along. “So spoiled,” she says, shaking her head. “Don’t let them rob you, because they will. That melon rind is especially enticing to these wild beasts.” 

“Do you know them all?” you ask in wonderment as you watch the horse walk slowly away, snorting against the sandy ground. 

Zhaf shrugs as if to say _more or less._

You walk into the center of the camp, a wide open space surrounded by tents on all sides, and full of people, moving this way and that. Occupied, clearly, with work of some kind, though you couldn’t hazard a guess as to what. The firepit is here, full of charred wood and sooty bramble and surrounded by large, singed stones. You take a moment to look around, knowing Thor’s tent to be somewhere in the vicinity, but cannot place it out of the dozens of tents that face you there in the camp square. 

Zhaf hands you another couple of dates and adjusts the bowl on her hip. You nod when she raises her brows at you, an unspoken question if you’re feeling well enough to continue, so she continues on. 

She takes you through the whole camp as the sun reaches its peak in the sky. She explains everything, most of it going over your head as you try to keep up and make polite eye contact with everyone you pass, even as you try to retain the information. Wanting to fit in as much as you can. Wondering if it’s even possible that these people will ever accept you as one of their own. 

She shows you the gardens on the north side of the camp, plots of sandy ground covered in thorny vine and rows of planted sorghum, and an open space beyond where a crowd of children is playing together with a handful of dogs. Screaming with delight as they chase each other and the dogs bark merrily. Two women and a man stand under a line of desert palms nearby, tall with heavy frond, swaying in the shade as they watch the children, babies perched on their hips and grabbing at their clothes. 

“Everyone has work,” she says, when you wonder aloud at how busy everyone seems. Not frantic, no one appearing stressed or anxious, but a steady heartbeat of activity that seems to wind its way down every road of the camp. “We work together so that no one works long.”

You ask what you will do, and that makes Zhaf smile, a little wry. “That’s not for me to decide, _zheana_. You will have to speak to Thor.” 

Something flickers in your belly at the mention of his name, and you find yourself looking around. As if the mention of his name would summon him to the spot. 

You chew on the edge of a date, feeling your stomach grumble happily. Full and satiated. “Do you know where he is?” you ask. You wonder, chewing on the flesh of the fruit, what he does during his days. 

Zhaf makes a noncommittal sound. “He does what is needed, which changes by day. Some days he is here and others he is not. If you see Rhaek here, then Thor will not be far.” 

You know that she means the stallion without asking. The roar from the black beast echoes in your memory, the throaty bellow of it, and you suppress a shiver. “Rhaek,” you say quietly, trying the name on your tongue. He was so different from the horse you’d seen earlier who had seemed so docile. 

“Are, uh,” you say, moving to stand beside Zhaf as she stops at a circle of stacked brick that reaches your waist. “Are the horses here more like Rhaek or Jhigi?” 

Zhaf takes a rope that’s anchored to the ground beside the well and disappears over the side and down into the black hole in hand and begins to pull back, crawling her hands up the rope until a bucket emerges from the depths of the well, overflowing with clear water. She lifts the bucket to her lips and takes a deep drink, before doing the same to you. Touching at the back of your head to steady you as she lifts the bucket to your lips and encourages you to drink. 

The water is cool and feels like an answered prayer as it goes down your throat and pools in your belly. You drink until the water begins to slip around the edges of the bucket and down your chin, waiting for her to snatch the bucket from you, but she doesn’t. You pull back for a moment to catch your breath and look at her, expecting...some warning in her expression, for drinking so freely. But you find none there as she lifts the bucket to your lips once more, nodding for you to continue to drink if you wish. 

Your stomach gurgles a little when you finally stop, having drank far too much, but you can’t bring yourself to care as she lowers the bucket back down into the well after taking one more sip herself. 

You forget your earlier question entirely until she answers it with a soft laugh. 

“Most are like Jhigi,” she says. “Rhaek was bred with intention. For Thor. His design was deliberate. No one else could handle such a horse, or would care to. He is a beast, just as Thor is. You must keep your eye on him.”

“The stallion or Thor?” you ask, smiling weakly, and that makes her laugh. 

“Both,” she says, like it’s a secret between the two of you.

A voice calls out, a long sentence you can’t understand that ends with Zhaf’s name, and she responds, looking up towards the sound as you blink quickly back to yourself. A brief exchange occurs, rapid firing words back and forth, and then Zhaf lets out a long suffering sigh. 

She touches your elbow with her hand, setting the bowl of a few remaining dates on the edge of the well. “Stay,” she says, her expression forming into something of a fond exasperation. “Just a moment - I’m needed.” 

She calls out as she goes to one of the nearby tents, her tone familiar and teasing, and you think she may be visiting a friend as she disappears into one of the tents. The twist of unease in your belly is a familiar one, and you look around the area a little awkwardly. Standing by a well, alone, guarding a half-empty bowl of sun-warmed dates. 

You’re on the southern end of the camp and it’s quieter here. Less bustle than at the center of everything, a bit on the outskirts, and you think that maybe whoever called to Zhaf is the only other person in the area. You pick at one of the dusty bricks of the well wall with your finger, sweating in the afternoon sun, and listen to the distant sounds of Zhaf and whoever she is speaking to. It sounds genial, whatever they are saying, and you hear Zhaf laugh, loudly, and it makes a smile turn at the corners of your lips in spite of yourself. Finding yourself quite fond of her already. 

You feel something then. Something underfoot, a faint tremor in the sandy earth beneath your feet, and you turn quickly, your chest tightening instinctively on the feeling of something approaching. 

At the far end of the little clearing, at a brisk trot, emerges the stallion. Rhaek. He snorts, tossing his great head as he moves towards you, and you feel the thudding vibrations in the sand as his hooves make contact. 

He is...beyond belief. Taller than you remember, somehow, the point of his withers higher than the top of your head. His black coat gleaming in the afternoon sun as he moves with apparent purpose, tossing his head once more on a grunting sound as he crosses the clearing in powerful strides. 

You step back reflexively, the well wall digging into your lower back, and your breath lodges up somewhere in your throat when he notices you. Pulling up short with a displeased sounding snort that comes from somewhere deep in his chest. His ears swivel atop his head, and his tail twitches, a violent slap against his hindquarters. He stomps his front foot, and you feel the brick in the wall behind you shudder. 

He throws his head again, snorting, and you hear Zhaf’s voice ring out. Sudden and rushed. 

“ _Zheana_!” she shouts, out of sight, but approaching fast, and then, Rhaek moves towards once more on a surge of strength. Kicking up dust under his hooves as they thunder against the earth. 

He stops just short of you, breathing loudly through his nose, and Zhaf shouts again, furious.

“Rhaek! _Nakho_! ” You see her appear on the far side of the clearing, but Rhaek is between her and you. 

He is watching you, his thick neck arched as he snorts again, and your mind is a blaring siren of panic as you scramble to think - of _anything_ \- 

And you thrust your hand towards him, the empty melon rind resting on the flat of your palm. 

His ears flick forward, his head jerking up in apparent surprise. He watches you for a moment, his ears swiveling one more, and then he takes a step, and takes the rind from your palm with a whiskered brush of his nose. 

Everything goes quiet then, your heart hammering in your ears, Zhaf standing on the edge of the clearing with her hand gripped tight in her hair. The only sound is the wet crunch as Rhaek chews the rind, juices dripping down his muzzle and onto the sand below. 

He finishes after a moment, snorting softer this time, and you suck in a breath when he takes a step towards you. His head is the size of your entire chest, and you can barely see the dark of his eyes behind the heavy drape of his forelock, and he breathes out, sounding like a sigh, and he nudges his muzzle against your hip bone. Shoving you back against the well wall and knocking a little gasp from your lips. 

He snuffles at you, the twitch of his muzzle against your dress making you shiver and nearly curl away, clearly searching for more rind. You breathe, trying to see Zhaf around the bulk of his great body, but you cannot see anything save for the glossy black expanse of his shoulders. 

You stand rooted to the spot, your nervous hand coming up and touching gently at the space between his eyes, and he exhales again. Bumping you again with his nose as his ears soften atop his head. 

A low whistle sounds, coming from the side of the clearing opposite from where Zhaf is standing, and his head jerks up, his ears pricked forward. He nickers, a deep, rumbling sound you can very nearly feel in the air, and then he moves past you. Trotting away from you and towards - 

You turn and see Thor, welcoming the stallion with an outstretched hand. Rhaek goes right to him, nickering again as he shoves his head against Thor’s chest, hard, hard enough that he would have thrown you back into the well if he’d done it to you, and Thor’s hand comes up to curl around his muzzle in what looks like affection. You can see Thor’s lips moving, speaking to the horse, but his eyes. His eyes are on you. 

Your knees quake and nearly fail, and you turn and grip at the well wall for balance as you hear Zhaf come to life behind you. Her voice raised as she crosses the open space, speaking to Thor in her native tongue, and you can’t understand a word of it but the tone could not be clearer. 

She makes it to you and takes your elbow, pulling you to your feet. 

“ _Vojjor_ _zheanna_ ,” she says, shaking her head. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” you say, nodding and pushing yourself upright. “I’m - fine.” Unable to take your eyes off of Thor’s. You cannot read the expression on his face, his brow twisted in something you don’t know, as Rhaek continues to nudge and prod at Thor with his nose. 

He comes to you then, after a moment of stillness, crossing the clearing as Rhaek snorts softly and follows. Reaching with his great head to snuffle his muzzle against Thor’s lower back and the backs of his breeches as he trails Thor. 

Zhaf is shaking her head when Thor stops before you, saying something under her breath that sounds vaguely like a curse, but his eyes remain on yours. Blue, like the sky, and framed with thick, dark lashes, and you feel all at once like you did when you first saw him striding into Jakkor’s tent. Overwhelmed and awed. 

“Are you alright?” he asks you, his voice softer than you’ve known it, and there’s something in his tone that has you straightening your spine and meeting his gaze. 

He sounds to be...a little amazed. 

You nod, flexing your hands and your sides and then releasing them just as quick. Wiping your palms against the dusty emerald of your dress. “Yes. I…” Thor watches you as your voice catches in your throat. “He is...quite a horse.” 

“He is,” Thor agrees, his eyes searching yours like he’s looking for some answer as Rhaek finds his palm with his nose and nibbles at the curve of it with a soft flap of his lips. 

Zhaf exhales loudly beside you, startling you a little from whatever is happening between you and Thor, and she pushes her hair back from her face. Thor looks to her then, finally. Like it's an effort to look away from you. 

“Where were you bringing her?” he asks, and she breathes out again. 

“We were going to get her a change of clothing,” Zhaf says, sounding exhausted. Like the last ordeal took a year from her life. “Unless she would prefer to remain in silk in the desert heat.” 

You look at her, and then down at your dress. Wrinkled and ringed with sweat under your arms. “Please,” you say, sounding a little more eager than perhaps you should. The light linen of her tunic looks heavenly compared to the restrictive press of silk around your ribs. 

Thor looks down at you, something crossing his expression before you can catch it, and then he looks to Zhaf. “You were in the middle of something a moment ago?” he asks.

Her returning stare is unimpressed, if a little teasing. “Before I had to save your _chiori_ from certain death, yes. I was attending to a matter.” 

Thor quirks a smile at her. Pleasant, like he finds her annoyance charming. “Return to it, then,” he says. “I will accompany her.” Rhaek sighs and shoves his head against Thor’s back. Bored. 

Zhaf looks to you, her brows raised, and you find yourself nodding. Understanding her silent question and replying in turn. Grateful, beyond measure. Something blooms in your chest, a sudden desire to take her hand, so you do. Grasping it in yours for a moment, your mouth turning in a shy smile. 

“Thank you,” you say to her. Meaning it. “Will I - “ you look up at Thor and then back to her. “Will I see you? Around camp?” 

Zhaf gives you a boyish smile back, gripping your hand and then releasing it. “I will be around, _zheana_. You will see me.” She looks up to Thor then and exchanges a look, before raising her brows at you once more and turning to go. She goes back from where she came, before she had come running to you, calling out in her native tongue to whoever she had been with that she was returning. 

You realize you are watching her leave and look instead to Rheak, who is pestering Thor like an oversized puppy. Nudging at his pockets and nickering softly for Thor to pay him mind. Thor places a palm on the strong bridge of the horse’s muzzle and pushes him back, patting his other hand to the dark crest of his neck. Moving the great animal back and stepping forward, in a direction of the camp you’ve not yet explored. 

He looks down to you and a soft snort dies in his throat. “You’re fond,” he accuses, catching your eyes drifting back to where Zhaf had disappeared. It takes you a moment to realize he’s teasing you, and you feel your cheeks heat in response.

“She is kind,” you reply. Something warm rooting behind your ribs as you realize that perhaps you have made a friend. 

Thor nods, like he can’t disagree with you. “Kind, she is.” 

Rhaek trails behind Thor for a few paces, snuffling loudly against his waistline, and then sighing and relenting. Turning on his haunches and ambling back into the camp when he realizes there are no more sweet treats for him to pillage. You look over your shoulder to watch him leave, feeling the ground quake beneath the soles of your feet at the pass of him over the sandy ground, and you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. 

You find yourself falling behind and lengthen your stride with purpose to maintain pace beside Thor. The sun has begun it’s descent, you realize, the hour late well into the afternoon, and you think it’s no wonder your legs pulse on a pleasant ache from being on the move since sunrise. 

Something occurs to you. 

“What does _chiori_ mean,” you ask, thinking to Zhaf’s words to Thor, and Thor makes a soft little huff, the corner of his mouth twitching. 

“It’s short for _chioriekem_ ,” he says, apparently a little tickled by your interest. “Are you learning the language already?” 

You shrug, falling into step at his side with some effort. “I should,” you say. “What does _chioriekem_ mean?” 

His hand falls to the small of your back, a gentle touch to guide you down a narrow row of tents, and it causes you to look up at him. To take in the handsome curve of his bearded jaw from below, where it’s shaded dark as it travels down his throat. He’s looking ahead, not down at you, but you hear something tinge in his voice when he speaks again. 

“It means wife.”

Thor leads you down a maze of rows, appearing to know exactly where he wants to go while you follow blindly. Tripping over your feet in your effort to keep up with his long legged strides and ducking out of the way to avoid a herd of rowdy teenage boys who sprint past you down the narrow walkway.

He leads you down a narrower path still, turning sideways to fit his shoulders between the beams supporting tents on either side and you take his offered hand without a thought when he turns away from you to watch his footsteps. It is quieter here, you realize, in spite of the close pack of lodging. More shaded than the rest of the camp too, the air a noticeable drop in temperature as you grip at Thor’s palm and try to keep up. 

Thor finally pulls up outside a structure of wooden pillars covered with a top of worn canvas, the sides open to the light breeze, and your eyebrows lift at the sight of piles and piles of textiles. Four women and two men sit cross legged on the ground, some patching large sheets of canvas with needle and thread while others stitch leather pads into the insides of supple riding breeches. There are fabrics of all kinds, rough burlap to fine, thin linens in colors of creamy whites and tans, cast about in towering piles that reach over the top of the people sitting on the floor and mending. 

They see Thor and offer a pleasant greeting, which he returns. He slips easily into his native tongue and you find yourself checking out almost at once, unable to understand a word. One of the women, older with gray hair that’s pulled back in intricate braids, is humming a song, and you find yourself hopelessly tuned to it as the melody rises and falls. Her hands are worn and quick, neatening up the seam on a pair of pants with a needle made of bone and coarse thread, humming along as she knots the thread up tight. 

Thor is handed a bundle the size of a newborn baby, wrapped up in a cream colored cloth, and he touches your elbow, drawing your eye before he inclines his head at the people seated and steps away, opposite the direction from which you came. 

His hand drifts back again when he turns his body to fit in the tight space and you take it once more. Feeling the rough of the callus on his palm against yours as he leads you through the shaded maze, murmuring for you to watch your step when you come upon a pile of clay pots that have spilled from a tent into the walkway. 

You see light up ahead when you look up again, a break in the dense sea of tents and structures, and you’re about to follow Thor into the sunlight when he stops suddenly. Locking up in front of you, causing you to smack against his back with your full body, unable to stop yourself. 

Hoofbeats thunder, approaching from the west, and Thor steps out into the open space and into the light, holding out an arm to keep you behind him. 

You’re on the outskirts of the camp, you realize. Looking to your right to follow the sound and seeing miles of barren wasteland as far as your eye can see. 

A horde is approaching from that grim landscape, a dozen horses galloping and kicking up dust in the distance, and you strain to see over the level of Thor’s arm. Your heart kicking against your ribs at Thor’s sudden stillness, unsure if what approaches is a threat. 

They slow as they approach, pulling up on their reins, and the horses slow to a brisk trot as they come into better view, approaching the camp. The rider’s faces are covered with shawls secured at each ear, protecting their noses and mouths from the whipping sand in the air, and you realize that there are dogs, too. Trotting alongside the horses, their teeth bared as they pant heavily from the heat and exertion. Tall, willowy things with long, pointed muzzles and the faintest ornament of feathered fur along their ears and tail. 

The rider in front has something draped across their saddle, something the color of the desert but splashed with red, and you realize it’s some kind of creature. A deer, or something like it, its blood dripping down its slit throat and staining the fur of the horses’ shoulder, where it’s lifeless head jostles with every step. Several of the riders have them, you realize, resting in their laps as they approach. 

Thor drops his arm as they near and you step up next to him, unable to take your eyes from the sight. 

They’re women, you realize. The riders. All of them. 

Their horses are worn, their necks slick and frothed with sweat, their nostrils flaring on heavy snorts, and the group pulls their horses down to a walk when they are a stone's throw from where you and Thor stand. The rider in the lead reaches up and unties her shroud, and as it drops, you see her eyes cut to Thor. 

She is beautiful. High cheekbones and dark brows over sharp eyes. Skin darkened from the sun and a strong nose that nearly takes your breath away.

“ _Rai_ , Khali,” Thor says, and her returning smile is devilish. “ _Fonas_ _chek_.” 

“ _Fonas_ _chek_ ,” she replies, lifting her brows at him as she rides past. Her voice is a seductive thing. Crisp and smooth like clear water, and a sudden, stupefying moment, you cannot understand why Thor chose you. 

She rides past, her hips swiveling loosely in the saddle as her horse breathes heavily and shakes its head, and the other riders follow, the dogs trotting close behind, their muzzles stained with blood. 

You count as the women pass, four deer, and several strings of desert hare tied to saddle horns. Thor inclines his head in greeting to each as they ride past, and they meet his eyes and repeat the same back to him. They ride towards the center of the camp, loosening their reins and allowing their horses to stretch out their necks on weary, deep groans. Coming down from what must have been an exhilarating hunt. 

You let out a breath, a little winded when you realize you’d been holding it, and you can’t stop yourself from stepping around Thor’s side to watch them go. Pushing your hair back and holding your hand up to your face to shield your eyes from the sun. 

Thor notices you staring and laughs a soft huff. 

“Who are they?” you ask him. 

“Khali leads them,” he says, looking down at you, the corner of his mouth lifting when he sees your mystified expression. “They are the _dikfonak_. The hunters.” 

Thor steps forward, following the path the group took back into the camp, and you hurry to follow. “They are all women,” you say, aware of the humor he’s finding in your amazement but not able to bring yourself to quash it. 

“Women ride faster,” Thor replies, like it’s a known truth, and you suppose you cannot argue with that. 

As you make your way slowly back into the camp, passing rows of tents, the ambient nose picks up as more people appear. Milling about in the roadway and past it, moving between the tents with apparent purpose. You look to the position of the sun and wonder if it is time to begin preparations for the feast. 

“How - how does one...become one?” you ask, straining your eyes to see where they’re disappearing into the traffic of the camp up ahead. 

Thor looks down to you, his expression crinkling on something like incredulity. He stares down at you for a moment, his eyes searching yours. Like he’s trying to read you but cannot. “You wish to be _dikfonak_?” he asks. 

You shrug, cheeks heating a little. “Zhaf said I would take a role.” The thought of it overwhelms you in that moment. The image of you galloping across hard packed sand in a fierce band of riders, the wind howling against you and carrying your screams along with it. 

Free. 

Thor nods on a quiet chuckle. “Indeed you will. You would have to learn to ride,” he says, like he thinks it will deter you. 

“I will,” you say. 

His brow arches. “You would have to learn to ride _well_.” 

You look up to him, something surging in your chest. Desire, you realize. Purpose. A sudden, suffocating rush of it. “Then you can teach me.” 

Thor laughs then. A proper one, from deep in his chest. He shakes his head, like he’s not sure what to make of you. “Perhaps I will,” he murmurs, looking down at you. “Perhaps I will.” 

Thor leads you back to his tent, and you’re surprised to find it familiar to you already. A small sense of comfort as you cross it’s threshold and step into the shaded space within. Thor hands you the bundle and then roots around on the far side of the bedroll. Coming up with a clay pitcher and tipping it back to take a long drink. 

You lay the bundle on the bedroll and slowly unroll it. Nervous, stupidly, as if anything bad could come from a bundle so small. 

Inside, you find several garments. A dress made of light linen that looks to reach the ground, two tunics, soft under your fingertips, and, most impressively, a pair of riding breeches. You touch at the leather patches on the insides of the knees and look up at Thor. He’s watching you, his eyes on your fingers. 

“This,” you say, finding your voice after a moment. “This is...very kind.” 

Thor makes a quiet, skeptical sound but he watches you. “Will they do?” he asks, after a moment. 

You nod, your eyes dropping back down to the clothing. Unable to look at his face with the feeling of something overwhelming in your belly. 

You hear the sound of him rubbing his hand over his mouth. He exhales softly. “The feast will begin in an hour,” he says. “When the fire is lit, you will find me beside it.” 

You look up to him, words of gratitude on your lips, but he’s moving then. Past you, touching lightly at your hip as he passes you and then steps outside and goes. 

In the silence that follows, you allow yourself a moment. To breathe in and then out, gripping the fabric of the dress in your hands and feeling something of an emotion cloud up your vision. Blinking hard to hold it back, even alone. You breathe deeply, to ground yourself, and the tight grip of the satin around your waist constricts tightly around your ribs. 

You pause, something like anger flaring sharply somewhere in your gut, and then you shove to your feet. Gripping hard at the green satin and yanking as hard as you can. Your hand catches on a seam along the back of your shoulder and you let out a sound you can’t control when the fabric resists, and then tears on an enormous shred. You pull and pull and pull, and the dress comes apart. Like everything Jakkor ever touched, it was designed to look elegant, but was hopelessly cheap. Poorly constructed and falling apart under the barest of pressure. 

It ends up in a heap on the floor and you kick it away. Chewing so hard on your lower lip that you think it might split, until you stoop low and gather it in your hands. Pacing towards the entry flap of the tent, as bare as the day you were born, and pull the flap back to chuck the bundle of satin into the dust and sand outside. 

That feels better, and when you close the flap behind you, bathing you again in cool shadow, you feel lighter. The anger easing out of you as you force deliberate breath in and out of your lungs. A practiced motion that brings you peace. 

Your new garments are laid out on the bedroll, and you find yourself reaching for them once more. You try each piece on, and find that, while a little large for your frame, they fit. All of the pieces are soft to the touch and cool, blessedly cool under your fingertips, against the last heat of the sun that has begun to set. 

You settle on the dress for the night, unsure if the riding breeches should be reserved for actual riding. The linen of the dress feels like a whisper as you draw your head through and then your arms. It falls to the ground, the skirt gliding under your hand as you move it. It leaves your arms bare and comes in a little at the waist, hugging lightly to your hips before flowing down to the skirt beneath. You run your palms down the fabric over your belly once, and then do a small twirl. 

You feel...feminine. Oddly, dressed in this garment that is so much simpler than your previous one. The fabric is coarser and the fit a touch looser, and yet...you do another twirl, and feel your heart pulse in your chest. 

You bend down to gather the excess of the length that is pooling on the ground beneath you and tie it in a loose knot near your knee. Drawing the bottom of the dress up off the ground and baring one of your shins to the cooling air. 

You wonder what Jakkor would think of you then. Looking down at your desert dress, flowing and loose, the color of the sand and the early morning sky. Dusty and with your hair a braided mess at the back of your head. Able to run, if you wished. Able to fight. 

A thud replays in your memory, the sound of his head hitting the sand, and you feel your lips twitch as you run your palms over your new dress. Allowing that small indulgence as the sun slowly marches down the evening sky. 

You hear the fire as it’s lit, the roar of a substantial flame and the subsequent sounds of approval from those nearby. When you peek outside of the tent, you find the center of the camp bustling. Everyone there to dine together, many working on final preparations as the last arrive, calling out greetings as they do. Bowls are being brought from the direction of the pavilion, carried by women and men and children alike, and people begin to take their seats around the roaring fire. 

The air begins to lift with the scent of roasting meats, a hearty, savory scent, and your stomach grumbles. 

You look, scanning the crowd as a quiet trickle of nerves flutter in your belly, until you see Thor. He is seated on the northern side of the fire, a leather pouch in his hand from which he takes a pull, before passing it on. 

Even in a crowd of his people, he stands alone, you think. Taller and broader, the comfortable spread of his body on his seat emblematic of some innate confidence that you know he possesses in his very core. 

His eyes cut to you then, finding yours in an instant even across the distance, and you feel your heart lurch in response. You see his mouth curve into what might be a smile and see his mouth move, and you know, you know he is speaking about you to those around him, as he keeps his eyes on you. 

The people seated on either side of him look up until their eyes find you, and then they’re smiling too, and something propels you then. Somewhere beyond your conscious mind that has you stepping out of the tent and forcing yourself over to where he’s seated. Knowing somehow that if you didn’t in that moment, you would have ducked back into the tent and been unable to re-emerge. 

Thor watches your approach, even as the others look away, and are painfully aware of the ache of your heartbeat in your chest as you get close to him. The expression on his face is a mystery to you, as it often is, a muted swirl of some emotion you can’t catch, and then he stands and takes a step towards you. 

You can’t help the yelp that squawks from your lips when he bends in one fast motion and scoops you into his arms. Getting his arm under your rear and lifting you up, forcing you to scramble, your center of gravity swooped from underneath you, until you’re gripping at his shoulders to keep from pitching over the back of him. A memory rushes at you, and you recall all at once that he picked you up like this, days ago. When he brought you from Jakkor’s tent. 

A small murmur of laughter comes from those seated around, a kind and affectionate sound, but you can’t take your eyes from Thor’s face. Close to yours now, curled up in his arms. 

His eyes are blue in the setting sun, and soft in a way you’re not accustomed to. He touches at the shoulder of your dress, and you realize it’s his first time seeing you in it. 

“ _Shafka_ _rhojosor_. You belong here.” he says, quiet, just between the two of you, and you feel something painful seize in your chest as his words hit you. Something is sweet on his breath where it fans against your cheek, a wine of sorts perhaps, and your hand curls around the leather of the shoulder of his leather chestplate of armor. Needing to ground yourself when you feel your world shifting beneath you.

You drop your eyes so you feel more than see the touch of his thumb and forefinger against your chin, and then he presses his mouth against the swell of your cheek. Just a brief touch, one with which you’re unfamiliar, and you find yourself turning to face him. Bringing your hand up to touch your cheek, where the skin is tingling in his wake, but before you can even try to fathom the meaning of the touch, he is shifting you in his arms and sitting back down to his seat. Settling you in his lap as he eases back into his comfortable position, and immediately engaging the person to the left of him in conversation. 

You force yourself to relax against him, fighting the instinct to curl in on yourself as people around turn to speak to Thor. No one pays you much of a mind and you find yourself grateful for it. Allowing yourself to fade into the background as the conversation around the fire grows and swells with each additional participant that takes a seat around it. Joyous and familiar, spoken quickly, eagerly, in words you cannot understand. 

Food makes its way around the fire, passed around in large bowls and platters, and you watch as each person takes a bite before handing it on to the person beside them. When they make their way to you, Thor takes a handful, buttery, round nuts the first time around, and then dates similar to the ones you’d eaten with Zhaf next. He holds his hand on his knee, palm up, and you see the corner of his mouth twitch up when you take a shy date from his hand. Patting your thigh in a small show of comfort as you bring it to your mouth and tear off a piece between your teeth. 

Meat comes next, platters full of it, and again Thor takes both his share and yours into his hand. Speaking to some across the fire while you nibble on a small piece and feel your mouth flushing with saliva at the flavor, very nearly groaning aloud, before taking another piece from his palm. 

He is solid beneath you, you fitting neatly into his lap, and he reaches around you with ease to pass bowls and take pulls from the leather pouch at his feet. It is indeed wine, you realize, when he offers it to you and you take a sip. Sweet and cloying on your tongue, and you force yourself to take slow, careful pulls of it. Feeling the syrupy pull of it in your blood after your first taste and barely restraining yourself from chasing it with another hard pull. 

The sun sets as the evening progresses, bathing the camp in a golden hue before at last it begins to dip below the horizon. The air begins to cool, and you find yourself groaning quietly. Shifting in Thor’s lap to rest your head against his chest. Your belly full and seeking his warmth.

His palm is warm and broad against your thigh, resting lightly over the fabric of your dress, and the cradle of his arm around you makes you begin to lose track of time. Drifting, lulled by the warm sounds of conversation passed over your head and the warm crackle of the fire before you. 

You can hear him, like this. Your ear pressed to the leather of his chestplate. You can hear the steady beat of his heart, strong, so strong. You can hear his intake of breath and then the exhale of it. You can feel the vibration of his voice against your cheek, coming from deep in his chest when he lets out a sudden laugh. He is warm, blissfully so, and you find yourself blinking slowly at the feel of him keeping you warm. 

His thumb moves absently across your knee. Moving the fabric of your dress there and back in a soothing, slow stroke, and you think distantly that he may not realize he is doing it. 

The world feels very small in that moment. You and Thor. Curled up against his chest as he nudges gently at the crown of your head with his nose, sliding back and forth over your skin in a slow, quiet rhythm that feels a lot like peace. 

When the fire is fading, Thor pats you on the thigh in warning before standing. Waiting for you to push yourself to your feet and then swaying. Blinking against the slur of wine in your blood, even from the few pulls you’d taken, and stumbling over your feet as Thor’s hand rests big and warm on the low of your back and pushes gently. 

He leads you back to his tent by necessity - you’d struggled to pick it out in the daytime, let alone now, with stars twinkling overhead and your vision catching and blurring along the edges. 

It’s not just the wine, you think, blinking as you barely stop yourself from gripping at him as you trip over a shallow rise in the sand. Your day had been dull and exhilarating in equal measure - nothing happened that you could even bring to your struggling mind to recall, and yet, your world had expanded today like a fire catching on kindling. You had met countless people, eaten more food than you could even comprehend, and now, now your body was slipping into an alluring exhaustion that you could only bring yourself to half-fight. 

Thor goes into the tent first, and by the time you figure out how the closed flap opens to enter, he’s got the overhead lantern lit, casting the interior of the tent in a faint, flickering light. 

He turns and watches you, standing near the entrance, until you fully step in, letting the canvas clap drop closed behind you. 

You mean to…

You don’t know what you mean to do, but the moment your eyes fall to the bedroll, covered in a rumpled sheet of light linen, your knees nearly give. You try to go with some measure of grace, kneeling down onto the soft surface, before abandoning any pretense and allowing your body to collapse fully onto it. Groaning softly at the weight of your body sinking into it. 

You wonder, faintly, if this is improper of you. Too familiar, after a few short days. 

When you manage to turn onto your side, you see Thor disrobing. Removing the leather gauntlets from his forearms and dropping them to the ground and then working his chestplate. Tugging his tunic from where it’s tucked into his waistline and pulling it off and over his head. 

Your eyes catch on the barrel of his chest. Chewing your lip silently as he toes off his boots and shucks his breeches next. 

He turns from you, and you remember that you’re to remove the bandages from your thighs in the evening time. You push yourself half upright, tugging at the hem of your dress and hiking it up onto your thighs. Your fingers search the fabric, clumsy and slow, looking for where the bindings end or begin. 

You try for what feels like an hour before giving up. Groaning and laying back on the bedroll. Letting your heavy eyelids close in what feels like defeat. Surrendering to the weary toll of the day. 

You rouse at the feeling of a dip in the bedroll, blinking awake on a gentle start, and see Thor sitting beside you. 

“I,” you say, a little breathless with the effort, and unable to keep the quiet whine from your voice. “Zhaf told me to unbind them, at night - “ 

He makes a sound that communicates to you to be quiet, so your voice trails off to nothing as you blink up at the ceiling of the tent. Your vision blurring and focusing as you open and close your eyes. 

You feel his hands on your knees and your body lurches on an involuntary startle before he quiets you, settling you back down against the mattress. His fingers feel along the seams of the bandages, and you let out a shaky breath. Your hands gripping at the linen of your dress where it’s pushed up over your upper thighs.

After a moment, he finds what he is looking for, his fingers closing around a small knot in the fabric, and he shifts on the bedroll. Lifting your leg from behind him to over his shoulder and onto his lap so he’s sat sideways between your legs, the back of your knee resting against the bulk of his thigh, your other leg pressed against his lower back. 

He soothes you like one would a horse, making quiet sounds with his mouth as his palms expand across your legs, warming your skin beneath them, before he begins to work. 

He is gentler than you expect, unwinding the bandage with one hand and trailing his finger along where the fabric lifts from your skin with the other, to gently loosen any that clings to your raw skin. It’s a minute or two of this soft tough, the rough scrape of callous on his fingers catching on your skin and making you shiver against the bedding. 

When your first leg is unwrapped, he pushes the pile of bindings off of the bed and runs the pad of his thumb along the edges of the wound that’s begun to dry and scab. Working the skin in gentle circles, pushing your blood to circulate beneath his touch. 

You force your eyes open, blinking from the effort, and look down at him between your legs. Distantly aware that perhaps you should make some attempt to preserve your modesty, your legs spread around the thick set of his hips and the barrel of his chest, but you can’t summon the energy. 

His expression is a quiet one, focused, his brows drawn a little in concentration as he touches all down your inner thigh. Tracing the wound down the length of your leg to the knee, and then back up. His palm curls over your knee for a moment, covering it entirely, before he turns in place. Reaching back behind himself and drawing your leg behind him over his shoulder and onto his lap, so both of your legs are stretched across it. 

He repeats the same motion then, searching the rows of wrapped linen until he finds a knot and then carefully unwinding. Lifting your leg and moving it as he needs, his hands warm and broad, and you find yourself fading in and out. Blinking awake after drifting off, trying to stay here with him out of an inexplicable desire to appear polite and the faint ringing in the back of your mind that tells you that you do not truly know Thor. Not yet. 

He touches along this one too, nudging gently at the edges of the hurt and moving the blood beneath your skin, and you feel yourself softening to him as sleep surrounds you like sun-warmed bedding. Relaxing weakly into his touch as you let your head lay back against the bedroll. Letting the slip and pull of the wine in your blood tease at your consciousness as you shiver in the cooling night air. 

You drift there, grounded by each soothing pass of his hand over your thighs, and wonder to yourself if this is real. If perhaps you’ll wake and find yourself back under the scornful eye of Jakkor where you wished daily for a simple end. You wonder, as his thumbs trace the curve under your knee, whether you dreamed him up. If he’s a figment, a fantasy, something your mind created to keep you from going mad. 

You think to yourself, as sleep begins to take you, that you would have imagined something grander, if that was the case. That you would have created a world of luxury and leisure, of cool springs and pillows of fine silks, if you were to create whatever fantasy you wished. Not this world of dust and searing sun and this man. This brute of a man with calloused hands and sharp edge to his smile. 

Perhaps, though, you think, your head tipping softly against the bedroll as you surrender to your exhaustion, that this world is exactly that. That perhaps this is all you could truly ask for if you sought a good life. People with kind hearts that don’t hoard their food and water from each other like scavenging animals. A man that touches you with gentle hands even as he grouses at you to stop talking as much as you do. 

Thor says something then, softly, like he doesn’t mean for you to hear, though it is in his native tongue so you would not know the words even if he shouted them. His hands glide over your legs once more before resting on your knees for a moment, and then he lets out a quiet breath. Lifting your legs from his lap with care and setting them down against the bed. 

He moves to settle beside you in his customary place, his skin all bare and radiating warmth that you turn and seek. Too weary to stop yourself as you turn to your side to face him. Nudging your nose along the warm skin of his bicep and waiting for him to pull you against his chest. 

He doesn’t, though, laying on his back beside you, and you cannot bring yourself to muster any reaction, be it relief or confusion, as you blink heavy eyelids closed and breathe in the earthy scent of his skin. 

You are nudged awake gently, a moment or hours later, you cannot know, by the soft bump of his elbow against where you’re laid against him. You sigh, seeking sleep once more, but then you are nudged again, and then once more. 

A sound filters through the cool night air, faint and distant, and from above where your head is resting. A soft sound, a near silent, breathless little grunt, and your tired mind wonders if Thor is dreaming. Having a nightmare that’s made him grow restless beside you. 

A soft shudder then, the quiet quake of breath catching in a throat, and somewhere, in the far reaches of your mind, you realize that the sound you’re hearing is that of a man’s pleasure. 

Rest has an iron vice on you, tugging at you, trying to drawn you back under even as a warning tickles up your spine at a rotten memory. You force your lungs to life, resisting the instinctive urge to hold your breath. To go very still and quiet so that what may come may pass quickly and without conflict. 

You’re still curled up on your side, pressed against him, you realize slowly. Your mind syrupy and slow as you try to make sense of what you are hearing. What you are feeling, Thor’s arm nudges gently against you in a slow, languid beat. 

He’s not…

The familiar grip and pull of hands on you is nowhere to be found. 

You claw against the pull of sleep, confusion thickening up behind your eyes, and you blink them open with some effort. Remaining stock-still beside him, feigning sleep even as your sleepy eyes adjust to the low, flicking light of the lantern overhead that’s about to fade out. 

He’s on his back beside you, his sun-darkened skin glowly faintly in the dim light, and he has his cock in his hand. 

Breathe goes rigid in your lungs, locking up tight in your chest at the sight of his palm curled around himself. Gripping at the heavy spear of his cock and working it in a slow, rhythmic pull, grunting softly from between his lips when his wrist twists, easing the skin back and revealing the glistening head, before rocking his hips gently up into that sweet pressure. 

You...you can’t...

You’ve never seen this. Not once in your years. A man taking himself in hand and drawing his own pleasure with smooth gripping pulses of his fist while a warm-bodied woman lies beside him, untouched. 

Your lungs burn and you take in a silent, shaking breath as you blink furiously against the swirling tide of sleep, desperate to see, to _know_ \- 

Something flashes within you, quick and jolting low in your belly, a sharp, frightening ache, that you can’t define, and the muscles in your thighs grip tight in a soft spasm of something. Of fear, or...

His hips twitch, the muscles in his abdomen clutching down tight, and you hear him grit out a breathless, soft groan above your head, and then his cock is lurching in his hand. Jerking in his tight grasp as he shudders beside you, working fat ropes of seed from it with the grip of his palm. Grunting softly as his cock spits the last of it, fat gobs of spend into the hair dusted across his lower belly. 

He lets out a breath, his chest heaving quietly, as he softens in his own grip, and you feel the back of your neck heating in a flare of something. Spreading up your throat and into your cheeks as you squeeze your eyes closed and school your breathing to normal. Feeling found out, though the quiet ease of his breathing gives no indication that you have been. 

You feel another pulse of something, strange and sharp, in your belly, and you shiver. Gripping your thighs together against the feeling, defensive, and reaching desperately for the weight of sleep that’s been shoved so suddenly to the edges of your conscious. 

Thor’s breathing slows on a sigh, quieted and content, and then he’s turning towards you. You hold your breath as you feel him reach for you, the slide of his skin fever-hot as he curls an arm around your waist and tugs you close to him. Pulling you snug against his chest, bumping your forehead gently against the bristle of his bearded chin. 

He breathes out again then, nudging his nose against the crown of your head, as his weight settles against yours. Grounding you to the soft of the bedroll beneath you and surrounding you with the warmth and strength of him. The smell of his skin surrounds you like a cloak, a warm, dusky spice, and the steady beat of his heart fills your senses as your nose presses against the curve of his chest. 

Something comes over you then, something familiar, already somehow, in the curl of his embrace, and you feel your heart slowing as your breathing evens out. Pressing your face against his heated skin and feeling your heartbeat against his. A steady, rhythmic drum beat that lulls you, so quickly, back to sleep. 


	4. Chapter 4

You wake just before the sun, blinking to consciousness and finding the tent lit a watery gray in the early morning. The light of the sun, just peeking past the horizon outside, a faint glow beneath the canvas flaps of the tent. 

The air is chilled still from the night and you find yourself wriggling closer to the body next to yours. Shivering as your cooled skin slides against his and nearly crackles from the heat there, curling your arms against your chest as you seek out his warmth. 

He is snoring softly, his head somewhere above yours, the tips of his fingers draped lightly over your back as his chest rises and falls in deep slumber. 

There are no sounds coming from the camp beyond the tent and you wonder if you’re the only person awake for thousand miles. 

You breathe slowly, sleep slowly clearing from your mind, and you allow yourself the time to take stock. To pause for a moment and go over what you remember, for the last days have felt like the blink of an eye and a lifetime, all at once. 

You try to recall how long you’ve been here, and find yourself struggling. Picking carefully back through memories, until at last you reach your old village. Jakkor. The spray of his hot blood across your face. 

That was three days ago, you realize. Only three days, and yet, you find yourself struggling to remember details. The color of Jakkor’s robes. The bitter ache of constant thirst. The cinch of the leather collar around your throat. It all feels distant now, and nearing out of reach, and you cannot bring yourself to mourn the loss of it. 

You must...make this work, you realize. In three days in Thor’s camp you’ve experienced more kindness and care than you can recall in years with Jakkor. You chew on your bottom lip a little as you listen to the beat of Thor’s heart, thinking. You must embrace this culture that is so foreign to you. Learn the language, as best you can. Make yourself useful, to the camp, and to Thor. Especially to Thor. 

You look up, titling your chin to see him, loose in an easy slumber. His eyelashes a dark fan on his cheeks, his closed eyes creased with soft lines around them from age and the sun. He is peaceful, here, with you in his arms, and you chew on your lip a little stronger. Thinking back, to the night before. To the sight of him laying beside you, chasing his pleasure with his own hand. Instead of using you. 

A drop of fear blooms in your belly, just a small little tinge but it makes your stomach turn all the same. 

It’s an odd feeling you can’t quite make sense of in the early morning light. The relief you feel for having remained an apparent platonic companion to Thor is immeasurable. You had no sooner crossed the boundary of the village, near to death with thirst and sunstroke after weeks of slow, torturous marching, when Jakkor had you brought to his tent and tossed to the floor and made use of you. You had wept then, the only time you had, silent and tearless, as your body had no moisture to spare. That you had not been subjected to the same treatment here was a mercy you could not explain and a debt you would never be able to repay.

And yet…

You must have value to Thor, if you are to remain here. Living this life you’ve only gotten a taste of but desperately need. If you cannot provide for him in this way…

Thor lets out a deep breath then, his chest rising and falling deeply, and when you look up to his face, blue eyes are open and looking back at you. Blinking slowly awake but holding your gaze steady in the low light. He lets out another slow breath, his eyes searching yours in a way that’s become familiar. 

You shift in his arms, a little shy as you pull one of your arms from where it’s pressed between your chest and his. Pushing back a little so you can look up at his face more easily. 

“ _M’ath_ ,” you say, your voice heavy with sleep. Hoping you’re pronouncing it correctly, one of the greetings you had repeated back to people as Zhaf had brought you through the camp the day before. 

The side of his mouth twitches up, and you think you were at least close. 

“ _M’ath_ ,” he repeats back, his voice quiet in the space between you. He watches you in silence for a few beats, and you feel a pressure building. Starting very low, simmering. You wonder if he’s waiting for something. Expecting something. 

_You must make this work._

You take your bottom lip between your teeth and reach for him, haltingly. Letting your palm rest on the thick curve of his side, but nearly jumping at the heat of his skin there. Shifting your body closer to his, letting your weight ease against his chest as you look up at his face. Trying to imagine what men desire when they wake, and unable to come up with a thing other than their companion moving close and sharing their warmth. 

You rest your ear upon his chest, hearing the slow, steady beat there, and it echoes loudly through his chest when he makes a soft snort. 

“What’s come over you?” he asks, sounding sleepily amused, and embarrassment flushes hot up your cheeks. Are you doing it wrong?

You swallow heavily, remaining in place with your head pressed against him. Determined to power through this. To be what he wants you to be. “Does...does a man not desire to hold a woman close?” you ask, worried as soon as the words leave your lips that his answer will inexplicably be “no.” 

You can tell he’s looking down at you even though your gaze is set resolutely ahead, tracing patterns in the canvas of the tent side. His voice is still heavy with sleep when he speaks. “A man does,” he says. “But less so when the woman looks as if she’s eaten something sour.” 

You can feel the unspoken building in the space between you and him. The act undone growing and tensing up the air. As you lay there stiffly in his arms, all you can think is that he hasn’t touched you. That he does not appear to want you. And if he does not want you, he has no use for you. If he has no use for you, he will leave you. And you will lose everything. 

It grows in you like a fire fed by dry kindling, roaring from nothing to all-consuming in a blink, and you find yourself feeling suddenly cagey. Flighty and nervous. Desperate to rid yourself of the uncertainty of it. Wanting to just rip the bandage off and get it over with as much as your belly lurches and rolls at the thought of it.

You reach for his waist, your fingers brushing against the skin of his inner thigh, and then he snatches your hand away. Making a confused sound as he tugs your hand away from his cock where it’s soft with sleep between his legs. 

It’s rejection and it stings, even as your insides wage utter war against each other, wanting and dreading the same thing in equal, nauseating measure. You roll away from him and push yourself to your feet, biting back the sound of distress that comes from somewhere deep in your chest as you take two steps away from the bed. Tugging your dress down around your thighs and smoothing the material there as you face the canvas wall of the tent and stand there. Unable to face him. 

Silence descends in the tent, heavy and palpable, and you blink back stupid, stubborn tears fiercely. Angrily, almost, chewing on your lower lip until your heart stops feeling like it’s going to burst in your chest. Feeling overwhelmed and overheated, even in the cool morning air. 

It’s a minute before you turn in place, looking over your shoulder to see him. He’s sitting upright in the bed, his legs sprawled lazily across it. He’s watching you with the most curious expression. Not one of anger or even of concern, but one of...some shade of intrigue. As if you’re the most confounding creature he’s ever crossed. 

He waits until you meet his gaze, and then he speaks. His voice smooth like honey. “What troubles you, little bug?” 

You wrap your arm around your waist and look away. Down at the sandy ground as the familiar, caustic feeling that you’ve ruined something puddles in your belly.

A moment passes, balancing on something precarious and unseen. You take in a breath and gather your courage.

“You have not touched me. Not...intimately,” you say. Struggling to get it out in the silence. 

He wasn’t expecting that. He watches you for a moment, considering. 

“I have not,” he agrees.

“Do…” your voice dies in your throat, and you clear it, shaking your head softly. Sleep is tangling in your mind with anxiety and turning your tongue to lead. “Do I not - please you?” Nausea is sickly in your belly, anxiety like a twisting serpent.

Thor’s eyebrows raise. A moment passes, and you hear your heartbeat thud away in your chest. Too loud in the quiet of the tent.

“Would you like me to touch you?” he asks. 

You shake your head again, confused. Struggling to articulate your thoughts. “I don’t - I don’t want to be...useless, to you.” You get out, finally. 

He watches you, his expression unreadable in the soft morning light. It is clear that thoughts are circling in his mind as he regards you, and he looks as if he is choosing his next words with care. 

“Your value to me does not lie in the space between your legs,” he says, at last. “I would not touch someone who did not wish it.” 

“No woman wishes it,” you find yourself saying, the response an unconscious, automatic one. The words leave your lips in a whisper but you feel like you’ve screamed them. 

The words hang in the air, and you fear you’ve given voice to something not to be discussed. A topic that is not polite conversation. Something that is to remain unspoken. 

He doesn’t respond and you feel your cheeks flush hot. You wonder if you dreamed of something strange over night, to wake feeling like this. When you finally look up at him, his brows are drawn, curiously. That intrigue from before still plain on his face. 

He motions for you, from where he’s sat on the bed. 

You watch him for a moment. Taking in the bare of his chest and the broad of his shoulders in the soft light. You can’t decipher the look on his face, and it makes your heart skip a little. Unsure. 

He motions for you again, less patiently this time, and you go. Walking across the tent until your knees nudge against the bedside, to where he’s sitting upright, his legs spread languidly, his knees a little bent. His hand comes up around you and touches gently at your thigh over the linen of your dress. Prompting you to meet his gaze when your instinct is to look to the floor. 

“No woman wishes it,” he says, softly. Repeating your words back to you, as some realization dawns on him. “You’ve never wished to be touched by a man.” 

You force a stilted exhale through your lips, and nod, and it feels like a canyon of a confession. To allow yourself to admit it, to yourself and to him. His hand is broad on your thigh. Covering all of it even with his gentle touch. “It is our duty - of course - “ 

But Thor shakes his head softly, stopping you. His expression unusually intent. “I speak not of duty,” he says. His thumb begins to stroke the curve of your thigh. Moving the thin linen of it over your skin, then back again. 

You realize that you’re looking down at him for perhaps the first time, his head reaching around the height of your shoulders. It’s strange, because even standing above him, you feel dwarfed by him. Like he could crush you with a solitary look or a single touch. 

You lift one shoulder in an inelegant shrug, feeling shy under the sudden intensity of his gaze. His arm around your thighs keeping you close. Tucked up against his side as you stand beside him when all you want to do is hide from this or throw yourself into it with equal, warring measure. 

You watch the corner of his mouth lift on what might be a faint smile, but it leaves his face as soon as it appears. Something is shifting in him, beneath the surface. Something heating in the air between you, thickening up with unspoken tension that you can feel on the surface of your skin that feels like a storm building on the horizon. 

“You’ve never felt pleasure,” he clarifies. His fingers tracing a long path up and down the line of your thigh. 

“Uh,” you say, inarticulate and stupid, your heart lurching a little behind your ribs at the touch. Swallowing heavily and looking down at him as his arm around you tightens, almost imperceptibly. “Pleasure. W-what pleasure do you mean?” 

Your mind whirls and tangles on itself as you try to think - of what he means. You’ve seen beautiful sunrises. Eaten delicious food, though really only in your time at the camp. You’ve felt a cool, crisp breeze in the heat of the summer and been grateful for it. But, somehow, you don’t think that is what he is referring to. 

His eyes go a shade darker, and the corner of his mouth twitches again. “Pleasure,” he says, his voice trailing, and the arm not around your thighs lifts. He lifts his hand to your face, slowing when you nearly flinch away out of reflex. He touches his knuckles to the shell of your ear, then across your cheek. Then softly down the line of your jaw. “Here,” he says. 

A shudder trips down your spine and you nearly choke on your breath when it lodges hard in your chest. Goosebumps spring up on your arms from the gentle sweep of the backs of his fingers against the curve of your chin. 

He makes a soft sound. A pleased one, coming from somewhere deep in his chest as he holds you close. 

Your heart gallops in your chest, and you barely suppress a shiver when his knuckles drag down the line of your throat and then across the flat plane of your sternum. Catching gently at the ridges of your collarbone as your lungs burn with...something. Whatever this is. Whatever he means to do as he looks up at your face with dark intent in his eyes and a soft, pleased turn of his mouth.

“Here,” he murmurs, tracing his finger around the curve of your breast, and your knees nearly buckle. First one, then the other, traced with a breath of a touch with the edge of his hand. Your breath freezes in your throat when you do shiver then, sudden and ripping all the way down your body, and you watch his pupils expand as your nipples pebble up underneath the fabric of the dress. 

His thumb touches to them softly, a faint of a brush against the stiff peak, and something jolts down your spine as they give under the gentle press of his hand. You find yourself clutching at him. Gripping at his arm desperately where it’s wrapped around your thighs. Your mind spinning and spotting as you struggle to pull in breath. As you struggle to even see straight. The ground feels like it’s moving beneath your feet and the only thing grounding you to it is his arm around you.

He stays there for a few beats, his eyes falling from yours to linger on the catch of your nipple against the pad of his thumb, going a little distant. His thumb swirls over it, gently, and then his forefinger and thumb come together. Giving it a soft, firm tweak. 

Breath you’ve been holding rushes from you in a gasp, ragged and hot, jolting against his arm around you. A slice of something searing cutting up through your belly, and he lets out a breath too. Quieter, but a little labored as he looks back up to your face and sees the flush you can feel traveling up your neck. 

Your chest is rising and falling, too fast, your breath too loud all of the sudden in the lack of space between you, and his hand continues downward. Touching a knuckle to the soft curve of your belly, circling there over the fabric of your dress. “Here,” he says, his voice a deep rumble, feeling your skin twitch in reflex to the touch of his hand. 

You cling to him, gripping still at his arm that’s around your waist, breath burning in your lungs. Feeling lightheaded, somehow, like you’ve run a great distance. 

His hand drifts lower, and you feel his eyes remain steadfast on your face as the backs of his fingers trail softly against your lower belly. Like he’s looking for something in your expression as his knuckles delicately stroke over the linen of your dress against the sensitive skin there. Below the curve of your belly but well above where the soft curls gather between your legs. Back and forth, he touches. Back and forth, the faintest caress of his fingertips across skin that feels brand new. Sensitive and fragile and raw, feeling every catch and caress of his skin. 

You find yourself swaying on your feet. Gripping at him to stay upright as you feel - something, warm, and tingling, deep in your belly, and further down. Something trickling in around the edges of your uncertainty and fear. Little electric pulses along your nerves that make your thighs twitch against where his other hand is holding you up. That make you...want to press against him. 

You lick your lips, finding your mouth impossibly dry, and you feel yourself start to tremble at the base of your spine. You look at Thor. Confused and overwhelmed, swallowing heavily around air that feels too hot. Too thick. 

He’s looking up at you, from his seated position, his pupils gone dark. Letting his knuckles drag softly there and back against that tender skin, cataloging each shiver it draws from you with a slow, heady blink. 

“I...” you say, letting out a ragged breath. The world is shifting beneath you in a way you don’t understand. “I thought - you...you would not touch someone who did not wish to be touched.” Emboldened to say so, somehow, by how pleased he looks with the way you’re reacting, but breathless still. 

His lips quirk on something of a sharp smile, no anger flaring through him at all. His fingers stop their motion, knuckles resting gently beneath the swell of your belly, and you feel something in you ache in response. Nearly pushing your hips into his hand but stopping yourself with a hard clench of your abdominal muscles. 

His hand moves from there and finds one of yours where it’s gripping him. Curling around it and bringing your hand to his face. Pressing the soft curl of your fingers against his cheek, against the scrape of his beard. He turns his nose against your palm, and you feel a brush of warmth that you realize was his lips, and something twists and singes cruelly in your belly. 

“Your heart is racing, little bug,” he says, watching you. His voice gone throaty and deep. His hand curling around your wrist and feeling at the thunder of your pulse there. “Tell me, are you afraid?” 

Your mouth drops open, a soft sound squeaking out, but you shut it. Unable to articulate what you’re feeling. Unable to even see straight as your mind turns over itself in a daze. Swaying against the hug of his arm around you and blinking heavily down at him. Lost and drifting as your heart kicks and starts in your chest in a frantic beat. 

A sound comes from outside the tent, a distant shout that is responded to in faint kind, and it has both of you breathing out. Startled from whatever spell you’ve both under, pulling apart a little from each other to breathe in the heated air. 

He seems to take some pity on you then, after watching you for a lingering moment. Slowly unwinding his arm from around you and letting you get your feet underneath yourself again. Leaning back and letting some air rush into the space between you. 

You look down at the floor, at your feet, to be sure they will hold your weight, feeling your knees wobble together as his arm leaves your waist. As you look back up, you see him. Half-hard between his thighs, and you look up, cheeks heating, feeling caught as he reaches to palm himself there. 

When you meet his eyes again, you find him watching you. As you so often do. 

“Did you rest well?” he asks, the heat from before bleeding slowly from his voice as he returns to himself a little. His eyes lightening from the near-predatory dark glint they had before, and you cling to the light blue of them. The familiarity of the feel of them. 

You nod, touching at your neck. Feeling the heat there from your pulse that’s still racing in your throat. Shifting your weight between your feet to strengthen your legs, trying to clear your head. To be able to muster a single, coherent thought. 

He nods once in reply. “Good,” he says. “You’ll need your strength today.” 

You frown and that makes a smile curve his mouth. For just a moment, then it leaves, his eyes on yours. 

“What happens today?” you ask, stepping back when Thor lets out a breath and pushes himself to his feet. Standing and touching at his cock once more. Absently, like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, before he stoops to pick a pair of breeches up from the floor and begins to step into them. 

He groans softly and stretches his shoulders back, working the sleep from them when he looks to you again. Looking down at you now, stretched up to his full height. “You will spend the day in preparation.” He finds his chestplate and lifts it over his head, fitting into it easily. “Tonight we will be joined.” 

You watch as he fastens the straps of the chestplate under his arms. A practiced motion, done without even looking, and it takes you a moment to understand what he just said. 

“Joined,” you repeat, softly, and it makes his eyebrows inch up. 

“Yes,” he says. “After today, you will be mine.” 

That draws a weak laugh from you. “I haven’t been yours already?” Thinking of how you’ve bedded down with him. Woken up in his arms, smelling of him. 

Another smile flirts at his face before slipping away, like he’s trying to suppress it. “Not yet,” he says. 

“Oh,” is all you can think to say, your voice trailing off at the naked implication there as he tips the clay pitcher by the bed back and takes a long drink, some water spilling past his lips and soaking into his beard. “What will you do?”

It’s strange, given the turmoil you feel still lingering along your raw-feeling nerves at his touch before, but the thought of him leaving you just then is a miserable one. If you were braver, you think, would might go to him. Seek out a comforting touch from the broad spread of his hands, feeling so unsettled still from before. 

Thor sighs and shifts his weight onto his hip, looking a little annoyed as he thinks on it. “I believe there are preparations for me as well.” 

“Together?” you ask, trying not to sound hopeful, but he shakes his head. 

“You won’t see me until the ceremony tonight. I fear they will keep us both occupied throughout the day.” 

You wonder what kind of torture “preparations” must mean for his mouth to draw so grimly at the idea and your mind can’t help but conjure nightmarish scenarios for what form this ceremony would take. 

A thought occurs to you then, though. Cutting through the image in your mind of some fantastical animalistic tradition of Thor laying claim to you while the whole clan watches, and you banish the image as soon as it flits across your mind.

Thor hands you the pitcher and you allow yourself a long drink. The water is cool and you’re more thirsty than you’d realized. When you tip it back down, Thor is watching you. 

“Have…” you voice trails, but you gather it once more. “Have you ever been joined before? To another?” You haven’t seen any others in your days in the camp, so if he has, you figure, they must be from a former time. Still, it’s hard to believe that he would remain unclaimed. Being a leader and being as strong and as handsome as he is. 

He lets out a short breath that sounds like a cut-off sigh. Weary, as if he hasn’t just awoken from a night of slumber. “I have not, little bug,” he says. “Have you?” 

That almost makes you laugh, the sound bubbling up in your throat before you can quash it back down. Thor’s brows raise and you find yourself shrugging inelegantly after a lingering beat. 

“No, I have not.” you clarify in answer to his unspoken question. The thought of Jakkor making any formal tie to you ridiculous to the point of comedy. 

Thor’s eyes narrow a little, and he shifts on his feet to turn to face you more. “The man I found you with,” he says, his brow drawing down. “He did not wed you?” 

Your face crumples at the absurdity of the question. “You found me with a rope around my throat,” you point out, a little perplexed. Of course Jakkor didn’t. 

Thor looks away from you then, and it surprises you. To see him remove his gaze with intention, as if he didn’t want you to see the look crossing over his face just then. When he looks back, the lines around his eyes seem a touch deeper, and you resist the urge to reach for him. Sensing some emotion building there in the hardness of his expression. 

“I knew you were not there of your own volition,” Thor says, finally. “But you are not here of your own volition either, and I intend to wed you.” 

The comparison has something flaring in you before you even realize it. Something hot and a little angry, that has you biting your tongue, hard. Swallowing the feeling down, not wanting to bring any further stress to the lines on his face as he regards you silently. Seriously. 

“I…” you say, after a long moment of silence. Your voice going a little quiet. “I don’t know what difference it makes. What it matters.” 

Thor turns to face you fully then. Stepping into your space and looking down at you. His face gone serious, his mouth twisted in a soft frown. He breathes out slowly as his eyes meet yours, like he finds some comfort there in your gaze. He seems to think on his words for a moment.

“It matters, little bug,” he says. His voice pitching soft in the space between you. “Because you will be mine, yes, but I will be yours.” He’s more serious now than you’ve ever seen him. Stunningly so. His hand comes up to curve around your jaw, tilting your head up towards his. “I will protect you. I will keep you safe. You will want for nothing when you are with me. That is why it matters.” 

He is looking down at you with such intensity that you feel yourself swaying into him. Caught in the current of the conviction in his words, your hand coming up to touch at his wrist. A little breathless as his words wash over you and you understand what he is saying. What he means. 

His other hand joins the first, til he’s holding your face gently between his hands. “You are mine but I am yours,” he says, repeating himself. “If I ever harm you, you are to strike me down, do you understand?” 

Your fingers grip right around his wrist, something in your chest surging. “You won’t,” you say, shaking your head. Knowing it in your heart to be true. 

And Thor lets out a huff of breath and shakes his head softly and steps into you. Bringing your face to his and pressing his mouth to yours in a touch that has you going still between his hands. Your breath catching in your chest as he sways over you, his mouth soft and warm against your own. 

When he draws back, you remember to breathe. 

“What was that?” you ask, feeling a little lightheaded. Unfamiliar with the custom of that touch but finding it agreeable indeed, your heart skittering behind your ribs.

The corner of his mouth twitches. “A kiss, little bug,” he says. “I suppose he never kissed you either.” 

You shake your head, a little dazed, and he pulls you in again for another. Grunting softly as his lips press to yours, and all you can do is cling to him until he pulls back again. 

He touches the corner of your mouth with his thumb when he draws back, touching at the heat there from the press of his mouth to yours, and you feel weightless. Drifting between his hands where he’s holding you steady. 

He watches you for a long while then, his eyes looking like a storm. Hard around the edges with something fierce you don’t quite understand. You’ve never seen him like this and it makes something shudder deep inside yourself. There’s something that looks like possession there and it is utterly stunning to find yourself reaching towards it. Seeking the claim of him when just days prior the thought a man looking at you in such a way would have turned your stomach. 

More sounds echo outside the tent as the camp begins to wake, and someone shouts Thor’s name, drawing him back from you. The voice calls again and Thor curses in his native tongue, low and hot, before he’s releasing you and stepping away and you nearly topple over from the loss of him. 

“Someone will come for you,” he tells you, moving to the tent entrance and drawing back the flap. Looking outside. “Wait here. You will be cared for through the day.” He groans then, and you aren’t sure why, but then the tent flap is being thrown open and Thor is surrounded by several men. Huge men, ones you recognize faintly as his riders, and they are overjoyed to see him. Grinning big bright grins and jostling him with their shoulders as Thor looks between them miserably. 

One of the men calls a greeting to you as you wrap your arms around your waist, feeling a little awkward as they surround Thor, and then all of them do. Turning and flashing you smiles and greetings before turning back to Thor, excited like a group of young boys and not the towering men they are. 

It occurs to you that they must be who will be putting Thor through his preparations for the ceremony, and you very nearly laugh at the sullen look Thor throws your way. Clearly not buying into the festivity of the moment as his companions have, who are acting like they’ve waited for this day for quite some time. 

Thor manages to extricate himself from the group for a moment, crossing the tent to you in three strides and pressing a kiss to your forehead, before he’s being tugged backwards, amid cheers and hollers, and he disappears from view. Pulled from the tent and outside, and you listen as the sound of the group fades as they take him away. To whatever the day will lead for him, knowing that it will end with you. 

Someone does indeed come for you about an hour later - two women who introduce themselves when they appear in the entry of Thor’s tent as Ashi and Aeshi. They look close enough to be sisters, both soft and curved beneath their light linen dresses, and you repeat their names back to them, uncertain, but they nod when you try the names out on your tongue, Aeshi smiling and holding out a hand to you. 

“Have no fear,” she says to you, speaking with a deliberateness that shows an uncertainty with the common tongue, and your heart spikes with warmth at her effort. You step forward and place your hand in hers, letting her lead you out into the sun as Ashi steps to your other side. 

They lead you through camp, one on each side of you, and you can’t help but notice people watching you. Turning to see you pass, their faces lighting with a similar expression of interest and what might be excitement. As if the presence of Ashi and Aeshi means something. As if they know where this day will lead you and end and are pleased at the thought of it. 

You walk between them, following them mindlessly through the camp as the sun rises overhead and the paths between tents begin to fill with people set about their day’s work, until you reach a tent that is tall overhead and walled with a sheer, willowy material instead of the typical heavy canvas. It looks ethereal in the soft morning light, gauzy and light and lifting on the gentle breeze and you don’t have long to wonder it’s purpose before you’re nudged towards it on either side. 

Ashi lifts back the entrance and Aeshi leads you inside. 

It’s cool inside, under the shadow of the vaulted ceiling overhead, and your eyes go at once to the large tub at the center of the room. Filled to the brim with clear, clean water that makes your throat ache at the sight of it. Still unaccustomed to seeing so much of it at once and treated with so little revere. 

Ashi moves past you to a shelf along the back wall of the tent, bending low to look at the jars and pots lined there, and a gasp is wrenched from you when Aeshi takes the hem of your dress in her hands and tugs it up over your head. 

“Oh,” you say, laughing nervously and covering your chest as Aeshi’s face appears again, having pulled your dress up and off. “That’s...alright.” 

Aeshi laughs then too, a little apologetically. Folding your dress neatly in her hands. “Sorry,” she says, dipping her fingers into the water in the tub. “You, uh. Are to wash.” 

Your eyebrows jump on your face, looking to the tub and then back to Aeshi, who hands you a cloth that is soft between your fingers. You’ve never…

She watches you for a moment, clearly intrigued by your obvious confusion, and then pats the surface of the water gently. “You get in,” she instructs, patiently, and you very nearly shake your head. 

“I get in,” you repeat back to her, stupidly, and she laughs again. Brighter, this time. 

“Yes,” she insists, motioning to it. “To wash.” 

The water is filled to the brim of the tub and all you can think is that if you climb inside, it will spill over the edges and waste on the sand below. You stand there, your arm pressed over your breasts, and look at Aeshi, a little helpless. 

She takes your hand and pulls you closer, gently, until the edge of the tub bumps against the outside of your thigh. “In,” she says, nodding assuredly when you give her one last look of uncertainty, before lifting your leg over the edge and stepping slowly in. 

The water is tepid but sends a shiver up your spine as you feel it rush around your foot and calf, all the way to your knee and up your thigh. Aeshi takes your other hand to keep you stable as you lift your other leg in, setting your foot tentatively at the wooden bottom of the tub, and then she makes a soft sound of approval and pulls you down. 

You go slowly, haltingly, squatting down as the water rushes up at you, rising around your waist and up, until your rear hits the bottom of the tub and the water reaches your chin, rolling over the sides of the tub in a great wave as your body settles down. 

They pay it no mind, kneeling easily in the wet sand beside the tub and getting to immediate work. 

To say it strange would be an understatement. Ashi produces a small clay pitcher and pours a hot, fragrant oil into the water around your knees, and then sprinkles a careful handful of what look like dried flower petals or herbs along the surface of the water. You watch as they unfold as they spread across the water, a fresh smelling perfume rising from them, and you let out a breath. Allowing yourself to finally recline back in the tub at Aeshi’s prompting until the back of your neck is resting along the edge of it. 

They wash you from head to toe, pouring cupfuls of water over your hair and wetting it down before working their fingers to your roots with a soft and sudsy soap. Scrubbing down your arms and legs, Aeshi laughing when you squirm away as she runs a rag over the sensitive skin over your ribs. 

Their touches are gentle and kind and you force yourself to breathe through the hammer of your heart at the feeling of strange hands on your body. Letting your mind track the soft melody Ashi is humming, a tune you’ve never heard but pleasant, as the water laps gently against your skin. A thought occurs to you and you voice it. 

“Is this - do you do this for every bride?” you ask as Ashi lifts your arm to wash along the underside of it. Wondering if this is customary, or if you’re receiving extra care through the nature of being joined to the leader of their clan. Or, perhaps they find you foreign and coarse, and in need of this additional tending to become presentable. 

Ashi continues to hum and Aeshi nods, meeting your eye. “It is custom,” she says. “Every woman who is to be wed is washed and dressed.” 

That is a relief you can feel and you allow yourself to sink a little lower in the water. Washed and dressed then, like every other bride. Not special, in good ways or bad. Just like every other, and the thought is a strange comfort to you as you realize it’s a feeling unfamiliar to you. Having always been so starkly _other_ in your former life. 

You find yourself relaxing into it, after a few quiet minutes. The back of your head resting against the edge of the tub as gentle hands work dust and grime from your skin and Ashi begins to softly sing. Outside the tent, the sounds of the morning have begun to pick up in earnest, people walking past the tent and calling greetings to one another, a herd of goats guided carefully past along the walkway. 

Tepid water laps softly at your skin and you feel yourself begin to drift off. Your mind floating gently to the thought of Thor. Wondering if he is thinking of you in that moment, wherever he is. 

Ashi’s voice picks up as she and Aeshi swirl their hands through the perfumed water all around you, and the song sounds like a lullaby to your ear as you allow yourself to stop fighting it. Letting your eyes fall closed and your breath to deepen as their hands soothe tension from your body as the camp rumbles on with life outside, as if today is any other day. As if everything in your world is not about to change. 

The day passes strangely, slowly, but still in a blur. The novelty of their tradition bringing you surprise at every turn but finding the time passing easily as you are moved from one preparation to the next. 

You’ve no idea how long you spend in the bath but your fingertips are pruned when you are helped out with careful, strong hands. You’re patted dry with soft cloth, after, around your hands you’ve wrapped around yourself with a nervous smile in a small attempt to preserve what modesty you have left. 

Lotions come next, glided over your arms and legs and down your back and around to your belly with the silky press of their hands. Massaged into your elbows and knees, traced carefully around the thin bones of your throat and shoulders. Drops of a fragrant oil are placed with care at delicate points - behind your ears, at the hollow of your throat. Along the pulse points in your wrist, then against the gentle swell of your belly. 

Your skin feels brand new in the breeze that filters through the tent, scrubbed clean and soft like a child’s, smelling of pressed flowers and honey. 

They dress you in a thin linen slip, knee-length and plain and cream colored, and Aeshi chuckles warmly when you ask, touching at the hem, if this is the gown you are to be wed in. Finding it lovely enough, the material soft beneath your fingers, loose and billowy around your breasts, and finding it cool as the air heats with the rising sun. Aeshi shakes her head as she adjusts the slip along your shoulders until it sits properly, telling you in her best attempt at the common tongue that the wedding dress will come later in the day. That you will know when you lay eyes on it, that it is the dress. 

Zhaf appears midday, bringing a light lunch of wrinkled dates and coarse bread, and her face lights when she lifts back the tent flap and sees you there between Aeshi and Ashi. The comfort of her presence is immediate and warm, and you very nearly throw your arms around her in an embrace when she steps inside the tent. She greets the sisters in their native tongue, sharing a short conversation that is clearly about you as you steal a date from Zhaf’s plate and she bats your hand away with a laugh. 

You end up sitting on the edge of the tub as Zhaf kneels before you, pushing your slip up to your hips so she can apply fresh bindings to the wounds along in the insides of your thighs, remarking with a little grin that they’re very nearly healed already. You speak easily back and forth, each taking small bites from the platter as you do, and you allow yourself to marvel at the depth of your familiarity with her already, no doubt aided by her easy affect and affable nature. 

You ask about the ceremony, comfortable enough with her to do so in an attempt to ease a little bundle of nerves that have taken root somewhere in the pit of your belly as the day has gone on, and she tells you what she knows, chewing on a thick rind of bread and offering a piece to the Aeshi and Ashi, who have moved behind you and begun to plait your hair. 

You lose track of time there, passed gently between Aeshi and Ashi as they move you through the process. Asking Zhaf questions as they come to you, about her past and about the camp, about Thor, and feeling the back of your neck heat when she teases you lightly for thinking of him. She stays, past the time needed to bind your legs, sitting on the ground and resting back on her hands propped out behind her, and answers as best she can, the deep, throaty pull of her voice a comfort to you as the sun passes through the sky and the ceremony crawls closer.

Odd as it may be, it’s your first time sharing easy company with other women, and the experience is a grounding one. Even straining to try to catch familiar words when the sisters slip in to their native tongue out of habit, there is a kinship there that feels both new and very, very, old at the same time. You feel heard there, laughing when Zhaf shares an anecdote about her first time on a horse. Seen, when they turn to you in an offered question and appear genuinely interested in your answer. 

It is strange, but wonderful, and you realize, as the day passes, that you have perhaps begun to make your very first friends. 

It’s several hours later when Zhaf excuses herself at last, pushing herself to her feet and brushing sand from her rear when she sees Ashi turn to a chest along the wall of the tent, some expression crossing her face as if whatever is about to happen is significant, and you don’t have time to ask for her to stay because then Ashi is standing and pulling a garment from the chest and your breath stutters in your chest. 

It’s the dress, it must be, because it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. The sisters unfold it with care, drawing it out between them, and you find your hand touching at the base of your throat. A little stunned by what you’re seeing. 

The dress is a soft, creamy color, the fabric thin and impossibly light, looking to be fitted around the shoulders and bodice and then easing into an ample, flowing skirt below. The bodice is made of a thicker fabric, looking sturdier as they carefully unwind the material, and embroidered all along it, in swirling, fantastical shapes, are small, green gems that catch in the light and reflect a golden hue. Oblong and bright and stitched with delicate care along the neckline and through the body of it. 

You take a step closer, drawing in a breath, and they hold it out for you. Encouraging you closer to see it more clearly. 

“See,” says Aeshi, a smile on her face as you touch your fingertips along the edges of stitching in barely concealed wonder. “You would know it when you see it.” 

Under the touch of your finger and closer inspection, you realize that the gems are not gems at all, but something far more delicate. Smooth and cool at your touch, feeling as if they would break apart at the slightest pressure. 

“What - what are these?“ you ask, your brow drawing as you spread a palm gently over the pattern, emerald green and glinting even there in the shadow of the tent. 

Ashi speaks, and you realize as you see a flash of her teeth that it’s the first she’s spoken all day. “ _Dahaan_ _inte_ ,” she says, then looks to Aeshi, as if for help. 

“They come through the desert in a great swarm,” Aeshie says. Speaking slowly and with care, clearly translating in her mind as she goes. Choosing her words as she feels them out in her mouth. “It is a great blessing. Only once in our lifetimes have we seen it. A cloud of green that darkens the sky. They are said to bring good fortune and they are only worn on days like this. For a long and happy union.” 

It’s only after a moment of quiet confusion that you realize that the gems are instead the wings of beetles, iridescent and shimmering. Sewn with impossibly delicate care into the soft fabric below in spiraling patterns that mesmerize the eye, and you feel something weaken in your knees with a swell of utter wonder. 

You let out a breath, amazed, and try to imagine yourself in such a fine garment. It feels impossibly fragile as you turn the dress over in your hands, and you cannot fathom the hours that went into its construction. The effort and the care there, stitch by golden stitch, now offered to you freely. A stranger to them, as of a few days ago, given such an extraordinary gift. 

“It’s beautiful,” you murmur, and the words feel foolish on your tongue. Like an understatement of absurd proportions, but Aeshi and Ashi are nodding, like they understand. 

They help you into the dress, encouraging you to lift your arms so it can come over the top of you, slipping down your form and settling along your shoulders. Lighter than air and pulled snug around your waist when Ashi steps behind you and begins to tighten delicate lacing up the back of it. 

The color is familiar to you, distantly, like a ghost of a memory tickling at the back of your mind as they secure the dress around your waist. You think on it, frowning and chewing on your lip as a cool breeze drifts past and stirs gently against the full skirt. Feeling on the cusp of some important discovery but not sure exactly what. 

One of the wings along the bodice catches your eye, gleaming metallic and bright, and rushes over in a sudden whirl when you realize that it matches the color of the dress Jakkor forced you into. The fitted, silky thing that constricted your breathing and showed every wrinkle and drop of sweat, that you’d wrenched from your body the day prior and left in the dust. 

It matches the color of the dress you’d worn when Thor had first seen you, curled up at his feet and looking up at him with hot blood on your face and wide eyes. It matches the color of the dress you’d been wearing when Thor bed down with you that first night. When he’d pulled you close and whispered for you to sleep. When he’d first called you little bug. 

A laugh tangles up in your lungs, delirious and overwhelmed, and you find yourself leaning against Ashi for support as it dawns on you. They support you between them, oblivious to the whirling of your mind, as the dress is fitted around your waist. 

It occurs to you then that you took such a risk when you accepted Thor’s outstretched hand. Stepped into such a vast void of unknown when you’d allowed him to pull you to your feet and pitch you over his shoulder. You’d had no way of knowing what was to come - if it would be markedly better than your current life or immeasurably worse. You trusted him, took him at his word, when he told you he would end your suffering if you asked. 

Even in the journey to the camp and in your first days there, you did not know what Thor had planned for you. You hadn’t known if he meant to keep you as something to warm his bed, something to be used and then discarded. You had certainly never expected this - to be wed to him with full pomp and ceremony, before the entire camp. Accepted by them and by him, chosen and honored in such a way. 

But Thor had known, you realize. Looking down to the metallic sheen of the beetle wings embroidered along your bodice. He’d known since that first night that he intended to wed you. To make you his. To join you to him for the rest of your days as a partner and an equal. 

Something shudders in your chest, unfurling like a bloom after a spring rain, warm and seeking, and you feel your mouth lift in a bewildered smile as you lean against Ashi and Aeshi, who are putting on their finishing touches. Tucking a stray strand of hair back into the elaborate plait that falls just above the nape of your neck, touching at your waist to ensure the dress falls just so. 

It makes you want to see him again, and you find a small comfort in knowing, as you look out through the gauzy wall of the tent and see that the sun has begun it’s descent towards the horizon, that it won’t be long now. 

Outside the tent, activity has begun to pick up. People moving a little faster now, their voices pitching a little higher in palpable anticipation, and you force yourself to take a slow, deep breath. 

_Soon_ , you think. _Soon_ , and then your new life can begin.

The ceremony is held just past the outer rings of the camp on the western side, where shelves of sand-colored stone formation create a raised platform of sorts, lifted off the ground in flat slabs of rock that stack atop each other in lifting steps. 

Everyone in the camp seems to be in attendance, standing around the stone formation in a large crowd and turning to look at you when you’re escorted to the edge of them by Aeshi and Ashi on either side of you. Their expressions are warm and pleasant, to the one, and as you look over them all, you realize that somehow, they have welcomed you here already. Accepted you as one of them, even before the official joining that is about to take place.

Thor waits for you, up on the stone, along with a woman you don’t know but realize must be the wisewoman Zhaf had mentioned earlier. The sun is beginning to set beyond the stone, casting long beams of golden light across the sand and casting the crowd below in cool shadow. The crowd parts as you begin to make your way forward, but you barely even register the feeling of naked anticipation in the air coming from everyone around you, because you can’t take your eyes from Thor. 

The dress feels lighter than air, the skirt billowing gently around your legs as you force yourself forward on short, uncertain steps on the soft sand underfoot. 

The solid stone of the altar helps when you reach it, strong and unyielding beneath your weight, and Thor holds out a hand to help you up onto the last of it, until you’re stood across from him, elevated above the crowd below. 

You draw in a breath, realizing you’d been holding it, and when you meet Thor’s eyes, you find them warm in the light of the setting sun. Sure and steady as he holds your gaze, turning your hand until it’s resting in the palm of his. 

He looks largely the same as before, though his hair looks to have been brushed more neatly than usual, and you allow yourself a moment to imagine Thor enduring a similar treatment as you received today. Being washed and brushed and oiled, and the thought makes the corners of your mouth turn up in a touch of humor, imagining how much he would despise the process.

Whatever preparations he suffered through, he seems to have come out the other side unscathed in and in good spirits. Watching you with a calmness and sureness that you’ve come to learn is just him at his core. Stable and secure and sure, as he holds your hand and lets himself drink in the sight of you clothed in the dress of his people. 

The wisewoman appears between you, dressed in robes that look far too heavy for the heat, but she offers you a kind smile before she takes your hand at your side and raises it between you and Thor. Palm facing up, where Thor places his other hand without prompting, so each of you is holding one hand of the other. 

You expect a loud proclamation to the people gathered below, a rousing cheer or a gallant announcement, but the wisewoman begins to speak quietly, just to the two of you while the people below wait and watch. She speaks in her native tongue, so you cannot understand what she says, but her tone is earnest, and Thor will not take his eyes from you. 

You allow yourself, for once, to look. To return his gaze to borrow from the strength he carries in it. To be here in the moment with him, as he takes you as his, and everything changes. 

The wisewoman continues on, her voice soft and a little wobbly, reciting whatever she is saying from memory. It sounds beautiful, strangely melodic on the cooling air, and you find yourself listening for any words you can recognize, but finding very few. The language is far removed from the common tongue, and you know you will have to commit yourself to taking it on, but are eager to try. Wanting nothing more, as you see Thor nod softly as he hears her words, to be able to speak to Thor in the language in which he is most accustomed. To be able to know him in that way. 

She pauses for a moment, reaching down to the belt of her robes around her waist, and comes up with a small leather pouch, cinched together at the top with string. She loosens the strings and tips the bag over Thor’s upturned palm that’s resting in your hand until a fine red powder falls there. She moves to your upturned palm, resting gently in the cup of Thor’s hand, and does the same. The powder is the color of blood, a vibrant red, and so light you barely feel the considerable pile of it in your palm. 

The wisewoman prompts Thor, saying something quiet to him, and the side of Thor’s mouth twitches up. 

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs, and you do. 

You jump softly at the touch of his hand, unexpected against your face as he opens his palm against your hairline and drags the powder in a heavy smear down your face and cheek, then over your jaw and down your throat. You blink your eyes open after a moment, against a lingering red dust, and cough quietly as some of it sticks in your lungs. 

Thor smiles at that, a small one, but real, and then the wisewoman turns and prompts you just as she had Thor. You look to your hand and then to him, and he nods to you. Letting his eyes fall closed, and you reach for him. Pressing the cup of your palm against his forehead and pressing down as you run your hand down the side of his face and into his beard. 

When he opens his eyes, you feel your breath constrict in your lungs at the sight of the bright blue there against the hot red of the powder smeared over him. Sticking and thickening on the faint bit of sweat over his forehead and cheek, it looks like blood, and your root your feet solidly beneath you with purpose as you remember the first time you saw him. Looking much the same. Powerful and wild and dangerous. Fierce. 

You figure you probably look like a carcass, like a wounded animal with the red smeared down your face, but he looks like the warrior he is. Proud and tall and strong. 

The wisewoman says a few more words, looking between you and Thor with some intention, and then she smiles. Bringing your hand to Thors and pressing your fingers to close around each other. 

She raises her hands over her head and her soft voice raises, calling out, “ _Evoon_ _athkemar_!” and the crowd below erupts. Going from still to shouting in a moment, cheering and raising their hands up in celebration, and then Thor is grinning at you and tugging you close. Getting an arm around your waist and pressing you against his chest, and then he is murmuring softly something you don’t understand and is bending low to press his mouth to yours. 

_A_ _kiss_ , you remember, as your hands come up to touch at his shoulders. Clinging to him as he nearly bends you over backwards with it, his mouth seeking and warm against yours. 

When you break apart, the cheers from below swell anew, and your chest warms on a burst of an emotion you can’t quite place. It’s warm and fluttering, suffocating almost as you draw in a tight breath and blink back a swell of emotion as Thor cups his hand around your jaw and you see his teeth bared in a genuine smile. 

_Happiness_ , you think, as you sway in the secure band of his arms. You think that feeling might just be happiness. 

The celebration that follows is a rousing thing. Chaotic with shouting and drink but palpably joyful after Thor carries you through the crowd and to where the fire has been stoked at the camp center. People make their way slowly over from the location of the ceremony, turning at once at the ceremony’s end to each other to engage in eager socialization, as if they haven’t seen each other in a great long while, when you know they’d all gathered around the fire just the night before. 

You had always assumed, in your former life, that the harshness of the elements out here in the desert is what made the people there so hard. So hard and cold to each other, barely a community as much as a group of people occupying the same space. You had assumed that was a given, for any people that had to endure the bitter chill of late nights and then the scorching heat the next day - the constant competition for water and food and shade and comfort. 

You were wrong, though, you realize. Watching the crowd move slowly from the area of the ceremony to the fire and the camp center, already swaying with communal song and joyful shouts. Children propped up on shoulders and babies onto hips, partners tugging the other in for a quick, easy trade of affection as the crowd moves together in a slow, ambling roll. They must all be weary, you think, at the end of a day of hard work. Sweating in the last heat of the day and sticking with dust that lifts on the breeze, but smiling, to the one. Joyful to be in each other’s company and so clearly drawing strength as the individual from the whole. 

You’re perched up against Thor’s shoulders as he carries you, looking over his shoulder at the crowd as it begins to migrate from the camp’s edge towards the center, and one man on the edge of the crowd catches your eye. One you don’t know, just a face in a crowd as much as any other, but his face lights when his eyes meet yours, and he calls something that’s lost in the ambient noise of the crowd, but you know from his expression is some sort of congratulations. Some form of kind word to you, from a stranger, one hundred paces away. 

You shift in Thor’s arms and allow your arms to wrap around his neck as he adjusts his arms around you. Bumping your nose against the hair at his temple and feeling your heartbeat a steady, strong rhythm in your chest. 

This was right. You were offered a choice and you chose correctly and this is right. You know, in that moment, that you are where you are meant to be.

It becomes clear to you, as the crowd around the fire gathers, that while the people of the camp are surely happy for you and Thor, the joining is largely an excuse to celebrate generally, and you find yourself a little relieved as it becomes apparent that the growing crowd is more interested in drinking and singing with each other than directing all of their attention at you. Thor sets you down once you reach the fire, already roaring and throwing off waves of blistering heat, and he keeps you close once your feet are on the ground beneath you. Touching gently at the back of your neck and letting his hand drift down the line of your spine. 

People approach then, individuals and groups alike, and greet both you and Thor in kind. Speaking mostly in their native tongue but grinning as they clap Thor on the shoulder and exchange earnest looks with you. Many of them taking your hands in theirs in greeting and nodding when you offer them a soft greeting in what little of their language you know. 

Leather flasks begin to make their way around the fire, heavy with dark wine, and when one appears before you, you look up to Thor. The corner of his mouth lifts, the red powder there still blood bright, and you feel the soft press of his fingertips around the back of your head as he tilts the flask to your lips. It’s sweet, you find, and dangerously palatable, and Thor laughs when you ask for another, tipping the flask back to you, then touching his thumb to the corner of your mouth to chase a lingering drop when you’ve finished. 

Food appears almost at once, a steady stream of people arriving carrying massive platters of it from the direction of the _hadaen_ _okre_. Roasted meats and pitted dates and hard crumbles of goat cheese are passed around the crowd and sampled, and people settle soon into their usual positions around the fire. Falling into the comfortable routine, settling down next to those they sit by every single night under the stars. 

Thor takes his typical place, sprawling comfortably, and you find yours as well. Sitting easily across one of his strong thighs as his hand comes up to press gently against the low of your back, balancing you there as a blessed breeze picks up and swirls across the ground. Bringing cooling air of the coming night along with it. 

You help Thor pass a platter across your lap and to the person to the left of you, selecting a few particularly enticing dates from it before sending the plate along, and feel Thor’s arm curl around your waist. Tugging you deeper into his lap until the side of your hip is pressed to his, settled comfortably against the bulk of him. 

He’s speaking to another, down a few seats around the fire, and you allow yourself to chew the first date slowly, savoring the flavor, when his hand takes yours and brings it to his face. His eyes remaining trained on the woman he is conversing with as he brings your hand up and presses his mouth the the back of it in a soft press of a kiss. Going on then with the conversation as if nothing had occurred as he places your hand back in your lap, and you wonder if he even realizes he did it. 

Your heart stirs and warms at the sight of a smear of red powder there on the back of your hand, shed from his beard and mouth. Vibrant and bright against the fading light and looking like your insides feel as you allow yourself to lean fully against him. Tucking your nose along the underside of his jaw as you settle in for the full course of the celebratory feast.

When it becomes time to retire, Thor carries you back to his tent. Scooping you up easily in his arms from where you’d been sitting in his lap, and you protest at first, but when he moves you feel your vision swirl a touch and realize you’ve had more to drink than you realize. It’s a short walk from the camp center to his camp, and even as your mind turns with exhaustion, you find the journey becoming familiar to you.

Thor drops his shoulder to slip past the flap of the tent entrance and steps into the pitch darkness within. He sets you down with care once inside and you find yourself touching at him out of instinct. Swaying on your feet in the black, unable to see your hand in front of your own face. You feel for his waist until your fingers brush against the smooth leather of his chest plate, and then a light flickers overhead and Thor comes into view as he lights the room with lantern flame. 

He fiddles with the lantern until the flame burns bright, casting the room in a soft, flickering glow of orange and yellow. You force yourself to move away from him a bit, taking two steps so you’re not leaning against him like a young maiden who can’t handle her wine, your mind still righting itself after being carried. 

When you turn back to Thor, he has toed off his boots and is reaching under his arms to the straps of his chestplate, a habit as routine to him as breathing as he prepares to disrobe for the evening. Something compels you back to him at the sight of it. Nearly tripping over your own feet as you go to him and your hands cover his, stilling them. 

His eyebrows lift softly on his face, looking down at you in the dim light, and you offer him a bit of a smile before taking your lower lip between your teeth and beginning to work the supple leather between your fingers. You should help him with this, you think. You want to. As his wife. 

It’s a trickier process than it looked at first glance, the straps well-worn and latched tight, and the tipsy looseness of your fingers doesn’t help matters. He is patient with you as you frown and work at it, lifting his left arm so you can reach them, and then his right when you move around to the other side. 

You allow yourself a little smile, more proud of yourself than the situation warrants, when the side straps finally come free and the front and back of the chestplate pull apart, revealing the thick barrel of his bare side below. He bends towards you, indulgently, to let you pull the piece over his head. You grip it with both hands around the shoulders and tug, grunting softly as you put your weight against it. 

It slips past his head and the weight of it, no longer supported by his body, catches you by immediate surprise. The chestplate slips from your hands like it was covered in a slick oil and crashes to the sandy ground with a loud _thud_. Smacking heavily against his bare feet, spraying him with sand, and an apology is on the tip of your tongue before you can stop it. Coming out in a rush as your chest seizes reflexively. Looking up to his face, your belly souring, expecting - 

But he looks to be holding back a quiet laugh, the corners around his eyes a little creased, and you deflate just as quickly. Nearly swaying on your feet from the riptide of emotion that’s boiled up in you and released just like that. Your heart thudding behind your ribs as he pushes the chestplate away with his foot and lifts his brows in a tease. 

“Heavier than you thought, huh little bug,” he says, and he steps as if to move away, but very suddenly, you cannot bear the thought of him leaving. You reach for him, putting your hands on his shoulders, and he stops at once. Looking down to your hands on him and then up at your face. 

It was just a moment in time, a split second of clumsiness and the smallest mistake that could have never truly injured him, but his reaction feels to you to be anything but small. The colossal difference between your former life and your current one so starkly demonstrated in just a blink of an eye, one he thinks nothing of, but one that feels to you like the earth shifting below your feet.

He waits there, watching you work through what you mean to say, humoring you with a patience you feel you don’t deserve, and his words from earlier in the morning come roaring back to you.

 _I knew you were not there of your own volition_ , he had said. _But you are not here of your own volition either._

You let out a breath and let yourself step close to him, past the heavy piece of leather in a pile at his feet. Your hands drift, unsure of where you should touch him, before settling on the heated skin of his bare chest. 

“What is it?” he asks you. The side of his mouth lifts and then falls in what you’ve come to know is him trying to hide amusement at your expense. 

You shake your head softly, needing to be serious. Needing him to know. “You’re nothing like him..” 

His brow draws for a moment, before lifting in apparent understanding. He stays quiet, his hand curling around your elbow when you sway a little on your feet against the warmth of his chest. 

“I’m not…” you shake your head again. Trying to clear it. “You’re not keeping me here. I want to be here..with you.” 

He snorts softly, looking down at you like he doesn’t quite believe you. Lifting a hand to your face and pushing back a strand of hair that's come loose. Tucking it behind your ear as the corner of his mouth lifts and falls again, something crossing through his eyes that you can’t catch before it disappears. 

He steps from you, after a moment. Letting out a sigh from somewhere deep in his belly turning from you slightly. Letting his hands fall to the waist of his breeches to continue to disrobe for sleep. 

That makes you blink a little, and you look down at your gown. Gathering the skirt in your hands, amazed at its relative cleanliness after the events of the day. You know you can’t sleep in it, for fear of damaging the fine craftsmanship of the bodice. 

You look around your shoulders, to the delicate sewing of beetle wings around your collar, and the sight of one missing, having fallen from the dress, makes your face twist on a frown. Touching the empty space and loop of thread with careful fingers before you move to work the gown up your body. Lifting it over your hips and trying to wiggle out of it. Needing, suddenly, to preserve it. To keep from damaging it further, but the dress won’t budge. 

You let out a soft whine, your mind drifting from the wine and your frustration making your fingers uncoordinated and clumsy. 

Thor comes up behind you and quiets you with what sounds like an exhale of a laugh, a soft huff, and then you feel his hands on your lower back and you remember that the dress is laced there. You laugh too then, softly, groaning quietly, and you hold onto the center beam of the tent for balance as Thor’s fingers trace over the laces and pull them free, slowly working his way up your spine. 

Once he’s loosened the laces, he helps you pull it over your head, leaving you in the light linen slip beneath. You take the dress from his hands once you’re free, knowing that he’s likely to toss it to the ground in a heap, and you squint hard against the slur of wine in your blood as you fold the dress with deliberate care. Tucking the delicate stitching within the soft, gauzy material of the skirt and setting it on the ground along the edge of the tent. Wondering if you’ll get to keep it or if it will be returned in the morning to whoever made it and finding yourself hoping for the former. Unsure if it was made for you, if every bride gets their own gown, or if it is passed down, from ceremony to ceremony from woman to woman.

When you finally turn back to the center of the tent, Thor is sitting on the edge of the bedroll with an expression on his face that you can’t quite decipher. Present, though. Clear-headed. Keeping his wits about him in spite of the great quantity of wine you saw him drink at the feast, as he beckons for you with an open hand. 

You cross the room to him, your hands smoothing down the material of your slip, tightening the material around your chest where it’s naturally loose and held up over your shoulders with a thin knot on either side. Feeling something twinge in your belly at the look in his eye as you step between his spread knees and stand there. 

It reminds you of this morning, standing like this. Looking down at him as he brings a hand to your waist to steady you, and you feel the back of your neck heat at the memory. Your skin tightening as you remember the soft, careful drag of his fingertips over your skin. Around the shell of your ear and the plane of your sternum. Under the curve of your breast. 

You shiver, shaking your head a little to try to clear it, and Thor makes a quiet sound that’s soothing to your ear as his palm drifts up the outside of your thigh. Lifting beneath the hem of your slip and making goosebumps prickle along your arms as you look down at his face. Trying to catch his gaze as your stomach does a flop at the warm drag of his fingertips against your skin. 

He stops, though, when he reaches the edge of bandage halfway up your leg, and you exhale. Letting out a breath and letting your hands come up to rest on his shoulders as his fingers trace along the rows of bandage until they find the knot where Zhaf had secured it earlier, and looses it with a gentle twist. 

Your palms warm on the bare skin of his shoulders as he slowly unwinds the loops of cloth, letting them pool around your foot as his fingers skate lightly across your skin. You look down to watch him work and the sight of him bare between his legs has your head jolting up, a blush flaring under your cheeks and a nervous laugh bubbling up in your chest, and you watch his mouth twitch on what looks like a ghost of a smile as he realizes what just occurred. 

The space between you is quiet, then, when you train your eyes instead at the top of his head. Looking down at him from this angle as he works the bandages slowly around and down. His hair looks soft and brushed in the flickering light, and the thought of him dunked in a tub to be scrubbed down very nearly makes you laugh again. 

You settle instead for lifting a hand from his shoulder and touching it gently to the side of his head. Threading your fingers through the hair there, and it draws a sound from him. Surprised and soft, like he didn’t expect it, and you watch his eyes fall closed for a moment before blinking back open. He continues on, his hands warm on your skin as he works, but you feel the gentle nudge of his head into your palm, so faint you nearly miss it. 

He lets out a soft breath as he finishes your right leg and moves to your left, his palm drifting up the outside of your thigh and seeking the knot under the hem there and beginning the same there. 

You can feel your head clearing slowly, standing there between his knees. Grounding yourself with a hand on his shoulder and another in his hair. Coming back to yourself from the wine until you feel more steady on your feet. Noticing more, like the smell of him this close - fainter than you’re used to, but that same earthy musk that you feel down in your toes. Listening to the slow, deep draws and releases of his breath, seeing his bare chest rise and fall with them. 

A bit of the red powder from the ceremony remains, streaked down the right side of his face, and you bring your hand to it. Cupping his jaw in your palm and rubbing your thumb over the stain, succeeding only in pressing it deeper into his skin, but it causes his eyes to rise to yours, his hands stilling on your leg beneath your slip. 

His brow dips as he looks up at you, a flicker of confusion that passes when you rub your thumb over his cheek once more. Feeling the full weight of his head where you’re cradling his jaw, your palm pressed against the scratch of his beard, and you can’t quite decipher the expression on his face when your thumb drops lower. Touches timidly at the corner of his mouth. 

His palm tightens around the back of your thigh like a reflex, a grip and a tug that pulls you closer to him, and it makes a gasp puff from your lungs. Your hand on his shoulder moves, coming to the side of his neck to steady yourself, and it makes something in his eyes shift a shade darker. 

A feeling you realize distantly is one of strange power turns in your belly. Heated and foreign, looking down at him with his head in your hands. You realize, your heart beginning to hammer, that you could do anything to him here. That he would let you do anything to him, in spite of his size and his strength. It’s intoxicating in a way not unlike that from wine - realizing that you are, for perhaps the first time in your life, controlling the situation. That if you pushed him away now, he would go, and if you pulled him close…

Nerves light along your spine, making you shiver again, and then you gather your courage. Letting your eyes drop to his mouth and leaning down. Nudging your nose to his and breathing there, your eyes squeezing shut, as your chest vices tight with uncertainty, and then tilting his face to yours with your hands. Pressing your lips to his in what you hope he recognizes as a kiss. 

Breath leaves him in a rush, hard through his nose like he didn’t expect it, and then he’s gripping you tight and pulling you close. Surging up from where he’s seated to meet you, one hand staying gripped around your thigh while the other hand comes to hold your cheek. You stay like that for one impossible moment, clinging to him as his mouth meets yours, and then he’s drawing back. His eyes going to yours, searching yours. His pupils dark and wide, his breath coming a little quick, and you can tell he’s seeking something there, in your gaze. The answer to some question he hasn’t voiced. 

Something is...you blink, feeling a little light headed, as something syrupy and warm flickers deep in your belly. Down in center of you, something you don’t recognize but that makes your breath quicken. Your lips tingle, as if his mouth is still pressed to yours, as he looks up at you, the blue of his eyes nearly swallowed by the black there. 

He keeps his eyes on you, deliberately, and his hand on the back of your thigh lifts. Dragging up the sensitive skin there until his palm closes around curve of your rear. He watches you, blinking up at you, and squeezes. Feeling at the meat of you there in his hand and gripping tight. 

In tips you forward in his arms, your body lurching on a soft little jolt, and you can’t help the sound it draws from you. Breathy and unbidden, a soft little _uh_ that has his nostrils flaring as he watches you. A flush rips up the back of your neck when you realize the sound came from you and your mouth drops open, beginning to feel overheated there between his knees. 

His hand releases you, drifts back down your thigh until it finds bandage, and he keeps his gaze locked to yours as he rips at them. Tugging them down from around the curve of your thigh with far less care than before, unwinding and spooling, until a pile of gauze lays over your left foot to match the one around your right, and you’re free of them. 

He won’t take his eyes from yours and you can feel the question in them, his braw drawing a little, and you don’t trust your voice but feel the need to answer him. Your heart is racing, a deafening roar in your ears, but the nauseating twist of fear so known to you is nowhere to be found, and you need him to know. 

Your hand curls against his beard and you nod to him, taking your bottom lip in your teeth as nerves and something else heat at the base of your spine when you see understanding cross over his expression. 

He moves you then. Getting an arm around your waist and another around your knees and turning you and him both. Getting a knee down on the bedroll and turning you down beneath him, laying you back against the bedding and turning his head to press his nose against your temple. Breathing in the smell of you there and making you shiver when his hot breath fans across the shell of your ear. 

You reach for him, your stomach dropping in your belly at the feeling of his body propped up over yours, and when you get your hands on his cheeks, he goes to you. Nudging his nose along the line of your cheek before claiming your mouth with his in a searing kiss that has a shudder tripping down your spine. 

It’s different, this kiss. Hotter and wetter, more fierce, and you can’t stop the breath of a whine that escapes you when you feel his lips part over yours. Your hands fly to his shoulders, clinging to him as he curves a hand around your jaw and tilts your chin up, tasting into your mouth on a hot exhale, and you do whine then. Heat slicing through your chest at the feeling of him opening you, then closing his teeth gently around your lower lip and tugging. 

“Thor,” you pant, your back arching up off the bed of its own accord, and he begins to move. Pressing the hot wet of his mouth against your cheek, then the hinge of your jaw. A gentle pressure of teeth there making your breath catch in your lungs, before he drifts further down. 

Your hand comes to grip at the back of his head, tangling in the hair tied back there when his mouth seals over your pulse point in your throat, making your head tip back against the bed as you let out a ragged breath. Your eyes falling closed at the hard suck of his mouth against that fragile skin, flushing the blood beneath to the surface in what you know will be a bruise. His teeth follow it, a soft little nip against the overheated skin that has your mind reeling. Whirring uselessly as you try to make sense of what is happening. Which direction is up, as he nudges he drags his nose across the hollow at the base of your neck. 

Every part of you feels overheated. Raw like a nerve ending and overly sensitive, your skin sparking at every place where your body meets his. All you can do is cling to him, the back of your skull pressed to the bedding beneath you, as his mouth draws lower and smears wetly over the flat plane of your sternum. 

You’re distantly aware of the feeling of a cool breeze drifting past, sneaking in from under the side of the tent and ghosting over the both of you, and it makes you realize with a shudder that the strap of your slip has fallen off your shoulder and is pooling down around your elbow. You feel the moment Thor sees it, feel the rigid lock of his muscles as he sees where the material has dropped low and exposed your breast. 

He moans then, low and _hot_ , and you can’t stop a responding sound from falling from your lips as he turns his face and nudges his nose along the curve of it. His breath washing over it in waves, making your nipple pebble up tight as your back bends on a rip of shivers, whimpering his name as something like a heated stone sits heavy and molten at the very pit of your belly. Something that makes your thighs come up to frame his hips where he’s propped up over you - that makes you need him closer. 

He stays there, his eyes squeezed shut as his nose and mouth drift near the curve of your breast, back and forth. Keeping himself rooted to the center of you, stopping himself from moving any closer as he clearly aches to, as the heat of his body yours makes sweat prickle along your hairline. 

“Thor,” you whimper. Out of your mind. Letting your head tilt to the side as the earth feels like it’s shifting beneath you. Overwhelmed with sensation, delirious with the swirling tide of something strange and foreign that feels like it’s beginning to spread out. From the base of your spine on out, making the muscles in your thighs begin to twitch beyond your control.

You shift beneath him, trying to settle yourself. To regain some semblance of control, wiggling your hips beneath his weight, and the movement has your thighs clamping around either side of his thighs. Tilting your hips to meet his, and your eyes fly open on a ragged sound when you feel something hot and hard slide between your legs and realize on a groan that it’s his cock. Thick and leaking and molten where it’s slid against the crease of your hip, and that has Thor’s forehead dropping to your shoulder. 

He hisses a curse, low and dark, and then he’s pitching your thighs up. Settling himself between your spread thighs and propping the backs of your legs on either side of him. Biting hard at your shoulder, making you yelp and clutch at him, as he reaches down between you and takes his cock in his hand. Rutting his hips hard into the grip of his fist hard enough that it jostles you beneath him. Makes your teeth clack together as you let out a feverish groan, gripping at the backs of his arms and trying to pull him down over you. 

You feel him there, rubbing the silky head of his cock against the swell of your belly, and he turns his face against your throat and murmurs your name as his hips start to move. Fucking into his fist, rocking the hard plane of his hips against the backs of your thighs, against the curve of your rear. Knocking against you with every jolt of his hips, a feign of a coupling as he moves between your legs as if he’s moving inside of you. 

The air around you is thick, both of your chests heaving out hot air as you cling and move against each other, and the feel of his teeth closing on the flushed skin of your throat breaks a sound from your chest. Wounded-sounding and desperate, and it makes Thor snarl and do it once more. 

His breathing changes, quickening against your skin as a groan grits from between his teeth, and your whole body _lurches_ beneath his at the feel of something hot spattering up across your belly. You can barely see straight, the flickering lantern light blurring your vision, but you feel his body go rigid over yours as he works his cock in his fist and spends over you. His hips rutting hard against yours, into the cruel grip of his fist, as his cock spits rope after rope of thick spend onto your skin. 

You can’t look away from it, something vicing tight between your legs at the sight of it, copious and slick across your skin, imagining - _imagining_ \- 

Thor’s breathing is labored when he nudges his nose to yours and kisses you, touching his palm against the side of your neck and drawing back to lock his eyes to yours. Searching there, his brow dipping down, feeling at the racing pulse in your neck. Seeing the hot flush across your cheeks and the tremble in your breathing. 

He holds you there beneath him, his blue eyes seeking some answer in your gaze, and it’s only then, beneath the impossible weight of him, that you realize that you haven’t gone away. Haven’t gone distant and far in your mind at the touch of his hands on your skin. At the press of his mouth and teeth against where your pulse is thundering in your throat. Even as your mind slurs with the heavy honey of heat that’s pooling and sparking in your belly, you have remained here with him. 

He kisses you again. Gently this time, his free hand soothing down your side beneath your slip that’s rucked up over your hips and rested on your ribs. Breathing you in slowly as he draws back, nudging his nose against yours with aching softness. His hand drifts from your side to your middle, and he groans softly as he touches at his spend there. Rubbing it against your skin as your thighs quake on either side of his hips. 

He presses a soft kiss to your chin and then shifts, beginning to lift onto his hands over you, as if he means to leave, and it rips a frantic sound from somewhere deep in your lungs. Your eyes flying open as you clutch at his arms. Your vision swimming as you try to meet his eyes, feeling like you’re drifting beneath him. 

He lowers himself to you at once, pressing his cheek to yours. Murmuring a soft question against your hairline, asking what you what’s wrong as you grip him close and shake under his weight. 

You shake your head, feeling something like tears springing at the corners of your eyes. Overwhelmed and confused, drunk on the syrupy fever that’s coiling in your belly. Unsure what it is. What it means but know, knowing that you need him there. Pressed over you and grounding you in the moment. 

He draws back and finds your eyes with his, and the unmistakable heat in them, still, after finding his release, makes the muscles along your spine bear down. 

“What do you need?” he asks, his voice a rumble in the heated air between you. His expression tilting almost towards pained, like he knows the answer to his question but will not say it aloud. 

You shake your head again, a hiccup lodging in your throat. “I - I don’t - know - “ 

His hand goes from massaging his spend into your skin and spreads across the curve of your belly. Spanning nearly the entire width of you, and when he drags it lower, until his fingertips brush against the sensitive skin just above the soft curls between your legs and your whole body _lurches_ on a broken cry. 

He soothes you at once, leaning down into your space and pressing his forehead to yours. Murmuring softly to you as your hips twitch against the gentle pressure of his hand over your lower belly. 

“Let me,” he breathes, pressing a soft kiss to your lips, then your cheek. “ _Qoy_ _qoyi_ , let me.” 

You turn your face to his, breathing in his air and trembling. Nodding as he presses another kiss to your lips. Not able to string together a coherent thought but knowing, in the very core of you, that he has you. That he will let no harm come to you, no matter what comes next. 

He pulls back from you a touch so that he can watch your face as his hand slips lower. Dipping down between your thighs and making a breath shudder in your chest as the broad of his hand rests against you there. Just a whisper of pressure, his palm cupped over your center, and when he presses gently down, your hips twitch in instinctive response. 

You let out a soft groan and let your head tip towards him on the bedding, so you can him. “What - “ you ask, swallowing down another shudder of a sound when he presses down again. “What is happening to me?” 

He gazes down at you as the spread of his palm begins to pet at you gently. The faintest pressure that has your nerves lighting along your spine, the tips of his fingers spreading and pressing in, and it’s only then that you realize in a deafening rush that you are _soaking_ there. Wet and sloppy against the gentle drag of his fingers as he lets them brush over you, from root to tip, and then back down. 

He bends low to press a kiss to your cheek and murmurs against the heated skin there. “Pleasure,” he says. “It’s pleasure, little bug.” 

You let out a jagged breath, your chest rising and falling as your overworked mind connects faintly to the conversation you’d had this morning. Only barely making the connection before his middle finger sinks in deeper. Pressing into the silken slick of your folds and pressing down as he drags his hand back up, something sparking bright and sharp when he lets the fingertip linger at the very crest of your sex. 

“Breathe,” he murmurs, nudging his nose against your jaw, and you do. Forcing your lungs to work when all you want to do is hold your breath and bear down against the light pressure of his hand. “Close your eyes,” he says, his mouth soft against your chin, and you do after a shuddering moment. Letting your eyes fall shut and finding relief almost at once. The sensory overload reduced down from a shout to a whisper, aware only of the feeling of his fingers dragging slowly against the mess of your sex. Allowing you to catalogue the tingles that simmer along your nerves as his touch continues. Feeling the hollow ache at your center when his finger dips low and teases gently against the slit of you, and the sear of sensation when his thumb drifts up and presses more firmly against the top crease of your folds. 

That pulls a breath from you, a soft, rich sound, and he hums lowly against your throat in response. “Breathe,” he says again, as his middle fingertip and thumb begin to work in hypnotic tandem. His thumb beginning to work in gentle, small swirls at the crest of your center as his middle fingertip presses delicately along the seam of your sex. Up and down, drifting up and down with the faintest bit of pressure that has your hips pressing against his hand. Seeking something - seeking more - as your head tips back against the bed and you make a soft sound like a wounded animal. 

It starts deep in your core, the slowly ebbing and surging pulse of something that feels like honey in your veins, pulled closer and closer to the surface with each swirl of his thumb, like the moon bringing in the tide. Creeping close and retreating, lapping at your insides like waves of water. Growing stronger as he presses with a touch more strength, as he encourages you with soft words pressed against the hinge of your jaw. Murmuring in approval when you feel yourself start to slip into it. Giving over to the heated pull of it, and letting your hips start to twitch against the pressure of his hand. 

You can taste it, your eyes squeezed tightly closed as he leans close and presses his cheek to yours. Flirting at the edges of your senses in rolling swells - something electric and cloying. Buzzing faintly around you, tingling along your nerves, and your mouth drops open on a moan, loud and wanton, when his teeth close around your jaw and his hand presses suddenly down. A firm, sweet pressure that has you arching against it on a broken sound, your hips lifting from the bed as you chase the feeling that’s rooted in the center of you but rippling out through your veins. 

You hear his voice faintly, sounding distant in your ears, telling you again to breathe, but you can’t. You can’t, feeling something pulsing and scorching welling inside of you, can only arch from the bed and grit your teeth as the pressure builds and builds, an impossible riptide that has you gasping hoarsely, your lungs aching - 

And then Thor says something, hot, under his breath, and his free hand is spreading fast across your belly and pinning you down. Holding you tight to the bedroll as his hand on your sex presses down, swirling his thumb over you in hard, tight circles, and the heat inside of you explodes. Slicing through you and carrying you with it - up, _up_ , and then it shudders and ripples and breaks, and your entire body curls up tight, defensive and rigid, as it crashes back down over you. 

Your mind is lost, as your spine goes rigid beneath the press of Thor’s hand. Everything sudden and still, like the heavy air before a thunderstorm hits, as your back bows hard from the bedroll, and you can’t breathe, can’t draw in air - until Thor’s voice cuts through, ringing and sharp and calling your name, and you collapse back to the bed as it finally crests and rushes over you. 

You realize you’re whimpering for him, calling to him in a broken, ragged voice, and both of his hands curl around your cheeks. Pulling you towards him as he presses his mouth to yours and then draws back, murmuring soft words of praise to you as you groan through the waves of pleasure that are rolling down the length of your body. 

He holds you through it. Keeping you close and sharing your air, his forehead pressed to yours, and when you feel your body shudder and pulse with the last few wrings of it, you force your eyes open. Blinking against the light of the lantern, and searching, looking frantically - until his face comes into view and he’s kissing you again. Tilting your chin up and pressing his lips against yours, again and again, until you fall back against the bedroll, gasping. 

It takes a moment. For you to return to yourself fully, feeling the muscles at your center throbbing, casting little, fading waves of dimming pleasure as they go fainter and fainter, your thighs beginning to shake in earnest as your breath comes back to you and your vision begins to clear. 

“Thor,” you murmur, sounding broken, and he gets an arm around your waist and pulls you to him. Tucking your body up against his and letting you shove your face against the broad strength of his neck. 

He soothes you with quiet mouth sounds, his hand moving to trail slowly up and down the ridges of your spine, and he presses a kiss against your temple when your shoulders start to shake with quiet, dry, huffing breaths. Barely holding off hiccuping sobs as you blink hard against the skin of his throat and force your lungs to work, drawing in deep, shaking breaths. 

“Thor,” you whisper, as your whole body ripples on a tremble, and he presses another kiss to your hairline. Holding you tight and letting you grip and wrestle with the surge of emotion that’s clogging up in your chest. 

You stay like that for some time, regulating your breathing as best you can as you blink back tears and cling to him. Letting the strength of him carry the weight of what you’re feeling as his nose nudges softly against the shell of your ear and his fingertips trail up and down your back in a quiet, soothing rhythm. 

The lantern begins to fade overhead, but you realize it’s just your eyes instead. Your eyelids impossibly heavy and blinking slowly, as your heart rate finally, finally slows to match the steady thrum of his. 

Thor shifts you then. Turning both of you until you’re both on your sides, your face pressed up against the crease of his underarm. He curls an arm around your waist and tugs you closer still, letting out a steady breath against the crown of your head, and telling you, in a quiet voice, to sleep. 

Wind picks up outside the tent then, a soft howl of it curling in the air, and the lantern light does flicker then. Flashing bright for a few moments before huffing out and casting the room in a heavy blanket of darkness. 

Thor is warm, though, and you draw in a deep breath of his scent as you feel exhaustion start to take root. Drawing you under slowly, and then all at once, as you give yourself over to it. Leaning into the cradle of Thor’s arms around you and letting yourself go to sleep like a welcome friend. Knowing that Thor, and the rest of your life, will be there for you when you wake. 


	5. Chapter 5

You hit the sand like a sack of flour, a heavy, solid thud, and the only sound you hear over the wheeze of your breath as it rushes from your lungs is a chuckle from Thor as he makes his way over to where you’re crumpled on the ground. In no real rush as he holds out a hand to settle Rhaek who snorts as he steps sideways away from where you’re laid out on the sand. 

It’s your first riding lesson. It’s not going well. 

Thor lifts you to your feet, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth that you want to shove away with your hand.

“You wanted to learn to ride,” he reminds you, an eyebrow arching as he brushes a bit of sand from your back as you get your feet underneath you again. 

You push his hands away when they linger around your hips and that makes his mouth twitch again, which only makes the smoldering ember of your frustration flare in your chest the more. “I won’t be the only person in the entire clan that does not ride,” you grit around heaving breaths, still struggling to catch it after it was so roughly knocked from your chest. 

Thor reaches for Rhaek and guides him close with a hand on the thick leather of the rein, drawing the stallion alongside you. “You wanted to learn to ride on Rhaek,” he corrects as you position yourself along Rhaek’s side and prepare for Thor to boost you up. It’s not the first fall you’ve taken in this lesson and you’re all too familiar with the mounting routine that Rhaek’s height necessitates. 

You bend your leg at the knee until Thor’s hand closes around your ankle, the other gripping under your knee. “He likes me,” you mutter sourly, gripping the rein in your hand. 

Thor makes a soft, bewildered sound. “He does,” he agrees, before he counts to three and on the third, all but throws you up over his shoulder. You grunt and swing your leg over the horse’s back, landing more gracefully than before, which Rhaek is grateful for, if the toss of his head is any indication. 

If you learn nothing else in this lesson, you think, as Thor pats your knee and steps back, you’ll have learned how to fall. And fall. And how to get back on again. 

You think back to Thor’s instructions when you’d first made it out to the little patch of flat earth an easy fifteen minute ride from the camp. Surrounded on all sides by rocky dunes with sparse, dry trees that provide some shadowed relief from the sun and, what you’d really been seeking when you’d asked Thor to teach you well outside of the boundaries of the camp - privacy. 

You hadn’t expected to be a natural at riding, and it seems your instincts were correct. 

You wiggle your hips to try to find your center of gravity over top the towering horse, and once you’re settled, you squeeze your knees. A hard pulse of aching muscle against the black coat that’s heated in the afternoon sun, and Rhaek moves forward. Stepping into a brisk walk that has you wobbling over top him at once. Your hand darting down to grip at the mane at his withers to keep you steady as the motion of his stride nearly pitches you off the side once more. 

Thor walks alongside of you, watching you carefully. The humor he apparently finds in you getting dumped in the sand overshadowed by a serious sort of concern the moment you’re settled back atop his horse. Rhaek had spooked a little when Thor had first perched you up on him, snorting loudly and jerking back, and you’d never seen Thor move so quick. Darting out to grab the reins from your hands with one hand while the other gripped at your thigh. Pinning your leg against Rhaek’s ribs, the only thing keeping you there, as Rhaek shook his head and took three quick steps back, startled by the weight of someone other than Thor across his back. 

He’d looked at you then, once Rhaek had settled, and the serious draw of his brow surprised you, even over the hammering of your frightened heart. You realized he had worry for you, in that moment, and it made something strange plant deep somewhere in your chest. When he’d asked if you’d wanted to go on, you’d nodded. Spurred on by what you’d seen there in his expression. Wanting...to show him. That you could.

Rhaek has calmed significantly since then, walking dutifully around the edge of the little clearing, apparently deciding that if all you’re going to ask him to do is walk and occasionally stop while you fall to the ground in a heap, he needn’t protest your position across his back too vigorously. 

“You’re fighting it,” Thor tells you, breaking your reverie. “Go with him.” 

You can’t help the clench to your jaw. “I’ll fall,” you say, still gripping Rhaek’s mane in your hand, looking down past his shoulder to the sandy ground disappearing slowly beneath his hooves. 

You can hear Thor shake his head. “You’ll fall if you fight it. Here,” he says, stepping closer to you and keeping stride with Rhaek’s pace. 

Rhaek’s height is such that Thor’s face is near your shin but he’s able to reach up to where you’re sat without trouble. His hands find either side of your waist as he walks alongside Rhaek, and he looks up at your face when he says, “Breathe, little bug. I won’t let you fall.” You feel pressure from his hands that you instinctively brace against but you clench your jaw again and let your hips move under his palms. Back and forth, back and forth, in time with the sway of Rhaek’s shoulders and hips. 

Thor nods, and something touches at the corner of his mouth as you let him manipulate your hips to flow with the gentle roll of Rhaek’s steps. “Better,” he says, something in his voice you can’t quite place. “Sit deep. Move with him.” 

You breathe in, and then out. Deep pulls of hot, stale air, and on the exhale goes much of the tension in your shoulders. 

He moves his hand to your thigh, holding you steady, and you focus on the feeling of it. Rolling like waves, swaying to the left and right as Rhaek takes step after steady step. You move more this way, but Thor’s right. Loosening the hinge of your hips around the barrel of Rhaek’s chest and relaxing your core has you feeling more centered, and you loosen the grip of your fist around the coarse hair of the Rhaek’s mane. 

“There,” Thor says, nodding again, and he lifts his hand from your thigh, taking a step to the side to continue to walk along beside you. “Do you feel that?”

You nod back, feeling something do a little flutter in your chest. You do feel it. This feels...better. More connected. Like you can feel Rhaek’s heart beating behind his ribs, all through your body. Rhaek lets out a sigh, bored sounding as he tosses his head to draw more rein through your hands, and something of a fond smile touches your cheeks. You lay your palm against the crest of his neck and feel the heat of the sun there in his dark coat and the chord of muscle and bone beneath it. 

“He’s a good horse. Letting me do this,” you say, more to yourself than anyone, but Thor must hear you because he makes a sound like gentle humor. 

“It’s too bad we’re out here,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching. “No one will believe he let you.”

Rhaek takes you around the clearing in ambling circles, nudging his nose until he’s drawn enough rein through your hands to sniff at the rocky sand as he goes. Bored, but content, it seems, as you shift your weight on either hip bone and experiment with how exactly to sit, perched up atop his withers. 

Perhaps asking to learn on Rhaek wasn’t your best idea, but the incredulity that crossed Thor’s face the second you mentioned it made you want to double down on the idea. You’re both surprised, you think, that he didn’t buck you off the second you slid across his back and you make a note in the back of your mind to find melon rinds at the hadaen okre to sneak to him later in gratitude when Thor isn’t looking. 

You’re deep in thought when Rhaek slows to a stop, and you realize Thor has gone to his head and is spreading his palm on the flat plane between his eyes in a comforting scratch. 

“That’s enough for the day,” Thor says, and you frown. You’ve only been on Rhaek for thirty minutes. Maybe less. 

You squeeze your legs against Rhaek’s ribs, wanting to propel him forward, to keep going, but his ear twitches and he shoves his face against Thor’s hand. Steadfastly ignoring you. 

Thor is looking at you with a bit of wry humor around the corners of his eyes. “You’re tired.”

You shake your head, but it’s a lie. The muscles of your core and thighs are aching. “We haven’t been here long.” 

You hear in his voice more than you see Thor's eyebrow lift. “Your legs are trembling. I can see from here.” 

You shake your head again.“I’m just starting to get it,” you say, willing the muscles in your lower body to stillness when Thor’s gaze stays there. 

He snorts softly, unimpressed, and moves to be beside you where you’re mounted. Looking up at you with an expression that reads a touch amused. “You can keep going?” he asks, and when you nod, he does laugh then. Under his breath. “Stay on then,” he says. 

He gives you plenty of time to see it coming, when he reaches for you waist and moves to yank you down, in no rush at all as he moves in and you reflexively flail against him. Struggling, gripping your thighs around Rhaek’s ribs as your muscles scream in protest, but you have just enough time to catch a wave of Thor’s earthy scent as he leans into your space before he’s tugging back and sliding you from Rhaek’s back like you weigh no more than a pebble. 

It’s ugly and silly, the ornery side of you that had sparked when you’d last fallen flaring again at the challenge of it, and before you realize, your palm is smashing against the underside of Thor’s face as he juggles you in his arms. 

It’s a concussive impact, hard and bracing, and you hear his teeth clack together, and your stomach falls through your feet. An apology rushes to your lips and falls, hushed, and you struggle to center yourself. Trying to steady yourself on his shoulders and get yourself upright, until his arms come to support under your thighs and his face comes into view. 

You have his cheeks between your hands before you can even think and you drop them just as quick, your heart rip-roaring in your chest like a sudden summer storm. Instinctive, bone-deep fear flooding your senses at the knowledge you’ve done something wrong. 

There’s blood on his mouth, just a touch, but your eye goes to it and you feel something like pain spark behind your ribs. 

He holds you with ease, your thighs framing his waist and dangling down, and you can’t read his expression when his mouth twists and then he leans down to spit a small spot of blood onto the sand below. 

“Thor,” you murmur, reaching for his face again, feeling sick, but when he comes back up, he’s grinning. Teeth flashing a little behind his lips and then he’s shifting you in his arms and tilting his chin up in a way you’ve learned is asking for a kiss. 

Your brow draws, confused, but you acquiesce. Taking his jaw in hand and leaning down slightly to press your mouth to his. He tastes coppery when he kisses you back, his arms tightening around your waist as his teeth close gently around your bottom lip for just a breath of a moment. 

When you pull back, he’s laughing softly and shaking his head. Patting your rear and letting you carefully down to the ground, reaching out and thumbing what must be a smear of blood from your mouth. 

“I suppose I deserved that,” he says, looking down at you like he’s charmed somehow by the fact that you punched him in the face, even as he spits another bit of blood to the ground. “Rest for a minute.” 

Your knees knock together like he willed it and you let out a thick breath, and with it, the tension lingering in your shoulders, as you let yourself slump down to the sandy ground. 

He goes to Rhaek and smooths a palm down his neck before he turns and begins to walk towards the far side of the clearing, where he’d stashed the saddle he’d pulled from Rhaek’s back the moment you’d first dismounted upon arrival. It hadn’t made sense to you at first, watching him loosen the girth and then deposit the saddle to the ground, turning and motioning for you to mount Rhaek bareback, but he’d told you that every member of the clan learns first without a saddle. He’d said then it had something to do with “feel”, and though you hadn’t understood then, you think you do now. More than you did, at least. 

Rhaek follows him across the clearing, his head low and relaxed, nudging his nose against Thor’s lower back like he’s searching for treats. He stands dutifully still when Thor bends low and picks up the saddle like it’s weighless and slips it over Rhaek’s back, reaching underneath to bring the girth around. Rhaek turns his head and bumps Thor’s hip when he tightens the girth, and you see the corners of Thor’s mouth turn up, his lips moving in some conversation, though you can’t hear what he says. 

A trickle of a breeze drifts past you, catching on the sweat dampening your temples, and you watch from the shade as Thor and Rhaek make their way back to you. Moving in tandem, like they always seem to, until Thor is standing before you with his arm outstretched. A leather flask in his hand, heavy and swaying with water in his grip, and something unspools in your chest as you shift to your knees and take his offering. 

It’s clear and cool and feels like heaven sliding down your throat. You swallow two heavy pulls and then offer it back to him, but he motions back to you as he watches, his weight on his hip as he looks down at you. Watching as you take another long pull, patient and unconcerned as you drain nearly half the flask to quench the dry rasp of your throat. 

When you reach for him again, he acquiesces. Taking your free hand in his and pulling you to your feet, taking the offered flask and taking a quick taste before turning to Rhaek and pouring water into a cupped palm for him to drink. He does that for a few moments, refilling his palm and encouraging Rhaek to drink his fill, until Rhaek sighs, satisfied, and drops his head to the ground to nuzzle for shoots of plant growth in the sand. 

Thor hands the flask back to you, his eyes trained on the saddle, and he goes to adjust it some more after you take the flask from him and hold it against your chest. Watching as Thor moves around Rhaek and feels along the girth to make sure no skin is pinched, feeling strangely aware of the beat of your own heart in your chest. 

When he comes around the other side of Rhaek, he lingers on whatever expression must be on your face. Pausing with the flat of his palm resting on Rhaek’s muscled hindquarters. 

“What is it?” he asks you. 

You shake your head, your tongue feeling heavy in your mouth, and it prompts him into movement once more as if he realizes he won’t be getting an answer from you. Coming to stand behind you and holding out a hand for your ankle. Ready to boost you atop Rhaek once more, though this time into a saddle. 

He boosts you up and follows shortly after, the saddle swaying across Rhaek’s back under the weight of him in the stirrup as he swings his leg over and settles easily into the worn leather of the seat. You take a moment to situate yourself, scooting yourself back until you’re flush to him, your pelvis snug between the cradle of his hips and the front ridge of the saddle, and when you’ve found your center, you feel Thor’s legs squeeze around the barrel of Rhaek’s ribs and Rhaek steps forward easily. His great head rising from sniffing the ground once he realizes that Thor is holding the reins and will ask more of him than a slow, babysitting shuffle around a clearing. 

Thor’s free hand comes to curl around your waist in what’s become a familiar motion, snugging you close to him, and you let yourself rest back against the warm leather of his chestplate on a quiet exhale. Squinting against the sun that’s already beginning to lower in the sky and feeling the echo of Thor’s heartbeat with Rhaek’s, thudding steadily behind and beneath you. 

He steers Rhaek out of the clearing and back towards the camp, or at least you assume so. The miles of barren dunes look identical to your eyes, bleak and glowing in the afternoon sun, but Thor seems sure and Rhaek slips easily into a brisk trot at a soft sound falling from Thor’s mouth. A breeze picks up, a whisper of refreshment as it brushes past you, and your hand comes up to cover Thor’s where it’s curled around your him. Your fingers small against his but spreading over the warm, callused skin there. Grounding yourself in the scent and feel of him as he holds you steady against the rock of Rhaek’s gait. 

You feel Thor’s nose nudge against your temple, then your ear. The brush of his mouth against the sensitive skin there, and you swear you feel his lips turn up in something of a smile before he’s spurring Rhaek into a canter, and then a gallop. Holding you tight as Rhaek kicks up sand with his powerful hooves and you begin to fly across the sandy plains. 

The strain in your muscles lingers throughout the day, aching like a drum beat with every step across camp and flaring like a white heat when you stoop to sit beside Thor at the feast that night. You eat heartily, only just now beginning to overcome a distant sense of needing to limit your intake after realizing that positively no one around the fire is cataloguing how much you’re putting away, except perhaps Thor, who sometimes nudges you to eat more than you have when you hesitate as a bowl passes before you.

It feels a little silly, to be as exhausted as you are from less than an hour of riding, but you feel as though you labored all day in the sun, and the wine passed around the fire slips deep in your blood as you find yourself blinking slowly into the dimming fire light. Leaning against the broad expanse of Thor without meaning to as your shoulders slouch and you let yourself settle into the comfort that comes with quiet, communal conversation over the sound of crackling embers and flickering flame. 

It’s a peaceful night, crisp and cool as the moon rises in the velvet black of the sky, and you find yourself tipping your head back against Thor’s shoulders to look at the pin prick blanket of stars. Blinking slowly and letting out a low, easy breath. 

The sky hasn’t changed since your time in the camp, surely, you think. It must be the same sky you looked up at before ducking reluctantly into Jakkor’s tent, and yet you can’t recall it ever seeming so vast. Expanding across the entire sky and lit with gemstone stars. Calm and clear and cooling on the night air with not a single cloud in sight. 

Thor is quieter than usual, listening to conversation being traded around the fire more than he contributes to it, and you can feel when his gaze drifts from across the flame and down to you. Your cheeks warm, a small part of you feeling childish to be staring up at the sky, and you pretend it’s from the fire as you let your eyes trace between scattered constellations, dreaming up images and patterns in the distant swirls of light, memories of a time long past. 

It’s peaceful, there. Sitting around the fire with few others. Sharing quiet laughs and passing around the last of the wine with full bellies and teeth-flashing smiles. You watch as the moon rises slowly in the sky and let your eyelids grow heavy with the comfort of it all. 

Thor pushes himself to his feet with a faint grunt when the fire finally fades and the last of the crowd begins to disperse for the night. You wake from a light doze with a gentle start, a soft intake of breath when the support beneath your body disappears all at once, and the only thing that stops you from faceplanting to the sandy ground is a thick arm that gets around your waist and props you back upright. 

You blink, confused and sleepy, and say Thor’s name. Unsure of how much time has passed and shivering a little in the crisp air. Thor makes a soft sound that sounds like half of a laugh and then he leans down and scoops you into his arms. 

You let out a breath and let your cheek rest against the leather of his chestplate. “I can walk,” you murmur, your eyes already drifting back closed.

He huffs a little in quiet, skeptical humor and though you can’t see his face in the dark as he carries you to the tent, you can hear the lift of the corner of his mouth in his voice. Warm like the summer sun, and he makes no move to put you down. 

It occurs to you distantly, in a far corner of your tired mind, that he’s carried you often in your short time with him. On your first days at the camp when you were too weak to stand and to Zhaf’s tent on your first morning you were yourself again. From the joining ceremony to the feast and then back to the tent that night when the weight of the day and the wine in your veins had turned your legs to lead. 

Tonight, you think, he gathered you in his arms without a thought, and you wonder to yourself as you hear the faint beat of his heart through his chestplate, if he did so to indulge you, or perhaps to indulge himself. 

The walk to the tent is dreamlike, the voices of others going distant and faint as they retire to their own tents, and you have a moment to wonder if you’ll fall asleep here once more when Thor is patting your thigh in warning and letting you down to the ground just outside the tent. He ducks inside and you follow, hiding a yawn in the palm of your hand as the tent flap falls behind you. 

Thor lights the overhead lantern and you blink hard, shaking your head a little to clear some of the sleep from your mind as you take the hem of your breeches in your palms. They are a wonderful piece of clothing, soft linen lined with supple leather along the insides of the thigh, but they’re no good to sleep in, and you blearily push them down your legs and step out of them, reaching around for your dress that you know know is somewhere there on the ground. 

By the time Thor has the lantern lit and casting flickering light across the tent, you’re dressed for the evening in your slip, letting your arms go over your head in a long stretch as you make your way to the bedroll. Your shoulders feel tight like a bow string, your back cramping in protest as you let out another quiet yawn. You roll one shoulder experimentally, flinching at the twinge you feel there and already dreading the pain you know will set deep in those muscles by the time you wake. Thor being as large as he is never made much sense to you, but it turns out that riding a horse is a full-body endeavor. 

You feel Thor come up behind you more than you hear him and you can’t stop the soft, instinctive flinch as his hand, big and warm, comes to rest over the nape of your neck. He ignores it, stepping up behind you. Radiating heat as the bare skin of his chest brushes against your shoulder blades and you let out a breath of tight whisper of an exhale. The gauzy veil of sleep that had been hanging around you evaporating in an instant at the great expanse of his body just a breath away from yours. You feel small, here, under the warm spread of his palm. But not afraid. 

His hand pulses around the juncture of your neck and shoulder and that pulls a sound from you you can’t stop before it slips past your lips. A low groan, surprising, as your body ripples against the pressure of his hand. 

“Tense,” Thor observes, his voice soft with a light tinge of a tease, and you feel your cheeks heat. Facing away from him and feeling your heart thud in your chest. To be so sore from so little effort is a strange, new shame that isn’t overpowering, but is there all the same. 

“I’ll get better,” you say, forcing an edge of determination into your voice. “At riding.” 

You expect a gentle taunt in response but he simply says, “You will,” in apparent agreement. His arm comes up around your waist from behind, curling loosely around it, and you’re not sure why until he says above your ear, “Breathe,” and then his hand grips deep into the muscle of your shoulder and your knees nearly give on you on a weak, wobbly sound. 

You stand there in the gentle cage of his arm around your waist, leaning heavily against him in the flickering lantern light overhead as his hand spans across the back of your neck. Digging his fingers against the tight twist of muscle there until they begin to soften beneath his touch. Letting out a quiet huff of amusement when it draws more noises from you, unbidden and raw, goosebumps racing down your arms as he rubs circles on either side of the base of your skull. Pressing on places where your muscles are rigid and cold and aching - places you did not know existed in yourself.

He takes his time. Content, apparently, to let his hand travel across the narrow set of your shoulders and up and down your neck. Kneading, flexing. Pushing tight muscle beneath skin until it warms and loosens, until the wire that feels bound tight along your spine begins to unspool. Propping you against him as you begin to go boneless, letting you rise and fall gently with the expansion of his chest around breath. 

He hasn’t touched you since that night. Not more than passing, incidental contact while bedding down or sitting together at the nightly feast since the night of the wedding when he reached between your legs and felt you at your most bare. 

You try to think how long ago that was, feeling like a moment and a year all at once, and figure it was a week ago, give or take a day. You’d waited, the night after, curled against his side, your skin thrumming with anticipation of - something - and then he’d pressed his mouth to your shoulder and slipped off to easy slumber, his arm draped heavily over your waist. It had been the same every night since, a blistering crackle of anticipation of some great coming thing, and fading all at once to nothing as he would settle down for sleep and his soft snores filled the tent. 

You’d ignored it, then. Chewing on your lip and willing your pulse to slow and for sleep to come as something deep in your center flared on something hot and strange. Confusion, and something not quite disappointment but certainly not relief. Your hands twitched at your sides then, your skin feeling prickly and too small, shifting on the bedroll to scratch some impossible itch, until sleep finally took you.

Now, the warm slide of his palm around the base of your neck now has your pulse tickling in your veins and your breath knotted up in your chest. The callus of his palms, rough from rein and axe, scrapes gently against the sensitive skin of your nape as he works the muscle there, and the strength of his grip, of his hands, has something tingling at the base of your spine.

Thor lets out a soft exhale over your head like he’s satisfied, and you feel the edge of his knuckles touch at the notches of your spine before he steps back away from you and pushes down at his breeches. Letting out another long, low breath that sounds pleasantly tired. Like the day in the sun, watching you take your first riding steps, picking you up off the ground and boosting you up again and again, has weighed on him in a warm, contented way. 

You settle down onto the bedroll, too aware of your skin, allowing yourself to look at him as you curl into a crescent moon on your side. Seeing him as he steps from his breeches on the ground and lets his knee drop to the bedroll. Your eyes go between his legs, the heavy weight of his cock there, and something quiet flares in your belly before you force your eyes away. You find yourself blinking up at him, a little dazed, as he settles in beside you in a way that's become familiar. 

The smell of him envelopes you. Falls slowly in the cooling air before settling around you like a blanket, warm and spiced and earthen. The expanse of him is great as he stretches out beside you and the feel of it makes you twitchy. Uncertain of what is to come and wondering...if tonight will be different than those before.

He turns to his side to face you, his arm coming around your waist to tug you to his chest as he usually does, but his eyes meet yours there in the flickering light. Something in your expression stops him. He looks at you, inches apart, and his brow dips for just a moment. Trying to decipher something in your eyes. 

You...want to look at him, you realize. Your hand lifts, halting awkwardly before touching at the heated skin above his hip. Unsure, jittery, just a shy touch of fingertips. Looking down at the color of your skin against his, feeling the muscles beneath his skin jump softly, before looking back up to him. 

You _want_ , you realize. You hardly even know what, but you want. And to ask him feels like an impossible task. 

You let out a quiet shudder, your shins touching against his, and your chin lifts. Just a soft little jut upward, but Thor reads you. Knows what you need. 

He lets out a breath through his nose, a quiet exhale of sound, and gathers you against him. Bringing a hand up to cup your cheek and draw you to him. Shifting his weight over you a touch and pressing his mouth to yours in a whisper of a kiss, his beard scraping lightly against your chin. The bed seems to spin beneath you, the room tilting on a gentle axis as he pulls back slightly and then kisses you again. Capturing your lower lip between his and making a soft, deep sound at the taste of you. 

He murmurs against your mouth as he pulls back, a quiet, “ _Qoy qoyi_ ,” and then he’s exhaling as he leans back against the bedroll. 

Something in his expression as he looks at you gives you pause. Makes your eyes linger there, searching. Trying to understand what your mind is telling you is different there somehow. 

You realize after a moment, when he lets out another quiet sigh and brings one of his hands up to touch at the knuckles on the back of your hand, that the armor you’ve always known him to wear...the hard edge he always carries around in his expression...is gone now. He looks not vulnerable or exposed, in spite of the vastness of his nakedness, but comfortable instead. Like he is home, here with you. Without need to posture or pretend. 

He’s oblivious to the realization that dawns upon you slowly, his eyelids growing heavy as he lets his head rest against the bedroll, and you feel the brush of his fingers against your side fade as sleep begins to tug around the edges of his senses. You feel the impulse to reach up and touch the lines in the skin under his eyes but stop yourself, chewing on your bottom lip that is still tingling from the press of his mouth, too aware of the hammer of your heart as Thor appears to give into the pull of exhaustion. Satisfied, apparently, that what you had desired was a kiss and that alone. 

He sighs once more, contented, and then he does turn you and tug you against him. Fitting your back to the bare skin of his chest and letting his nose nudge against the crown of your head. Deciding for the both of you, apparently, that it’s time to rest. 

The lantern flickers overhead, twinkling when a chilly gust of wind flirts beneath the canvas wall of the tent, and you let out a tight breath and force your eyes closed. Tasting something bitter at the back of your throat and swallowing around it. Resigning yourself to another night of quiet, platonic companionship, even as your skin feels electric where it touches his. You try to will your drowsiness from before around the fire to return to you when all you can feel is the heavy thud of your heartbeat in your chest and the strange disquiet low in your belly that feels like something spooling tight. 

You shift after a moment, trying to get comfortable over the persistent restlessness in your bones, and it brings your hand to bump against his around your waist. Just a soft brush of skin, incidental, but his hand turns to yours and nudges it once more. Not holding it but simply resting it against yours, and for tonight, you decide, it will have to be enough.

You wake to the murky gray of early morning light and the heavy press of Thor along your back. You blink awake slowly, pulled tenderly from a lingering dream that felt like Thor in a way you can’t quite articulate - that smelled like him and felt like him in the very roots of it. The gentle rumble of Thor’s snor over your head is rhythmic and steady, tethering you back to reality and the waking world as you let your eyes open on a few soft blinks and make out the dim interior of the tent. 

Thor turned in the night. Shifted so his weight is over yours, covering you entirely and weighing you down against the bedroll, his chin resting against the top of your head. He is heavy and warm, rumbling softly with each raspy exhale, and it takes your sleep-bleary mind a moment to realize that you do not feel trapped here, even bearing the brunt of his sleeping form. Where you would struggle to move him, if you wanted to, but you feel not cornered, but embraced. 

To wake in such a way is a luxury you’re not yet accustomed to. To blink slowly awake in a place that is warm and quiet and safe, to be allowed to simply _be_. No need to rush to your feet, to be prepared and presented properly for when the other eventually wakes. Dressed in soft, comfortable, practical clothes and waking with a belly still full from the night before. 

You still can’t discern what you did in this life or one past to deserve the life you now lead, but you stop yourself from examining that question too closely. Letting out a wobbly yawn and allowing yourself to settle back down against the warm bulk that is Thor’s sleeping form.

Your arm is trapped beneath your front, your palm down near the apex of your thighs where your slip has bunched up around your waist. You shift to find a more comfortable position, as best you can under Thor’s weight, and when your hand slides down the inside of your leg, you nearly startle at the warm glide of slick it finds there. 

You go still, your hand pressed against your inner thigh. Frowning softly in a touch of confusion. 

You let out a breath and then draw one in, your brow twisting a little as you reach there, deliberately now. Wakefulness coming to you quicker then as worry prickles the edges of your mind. Wiggling your hand beneath your weight and Thor’s until your palm is resting along the flat of your lower belly and below, resting atop the soft curls there. When you reach down with careful fingers, you nearly shudder as your fingertips slip easily through the mess between your thighs. 

Confusion wars with the last vestiges of sleep in your tired mind as you touch yourself delicately there. Tracing a fingerpad through the gentle folds of your sex, finding them warm and wet and whisper soft. 

You shift once more, pushing Thor’s weight off for long enough to draw your hand free before settling back down against the bedding. Looking to your hand and finding a clear slick that strings between your fingers when you spread them. You frown again, moving your fingers together. 

You’d felt this once before, on the night you wed Thor. When he had reached between your legs and found you soaking there. You’d felt it then, the slick glide of his fingers against your sex, and you realize this must be the same. 

_Pleasure, little bug,_ he had said. This, you think, as you stare at your fingers in the early morning light, must be a mark of that pleasure. It doesn’t strike you as particularly pleasant, your brow drawing further. 

You rub your hand onto your sleep slip until it comes away clean and are relieved for it. You don’t feel...that...right now, though when you think on it, you did the night prior. That honey warmth pooling in your belly when you’d laid beside Thor and wondered if tonight he would reach for you. Something whisps against your memory, fleeting and faint, and you realize you dreamt of Thor last night as well, though you cannot recall any specific detail. Perhaps you dreamt of Thor in that way, though you had not previously thought yourself capable of such. 

A voice shouts from outside the tent, a distant and genial greeting, Thor shifts then, letting out a low breath as his arm tightens around your waist. Slow with sleep as his weight settles further against you, his face coming to press against the back of your neck. Breathing deeply against the skin there, the tip of his nose tracing along the curve of your nape, up and down as his beard gently scrapes against your skin. Waking, it seems, but reluctantly. 

You rub your hand against your dress once more, some part of you sure that the smell of it will rouse him from his slumber, but Thor simply sighs and parts his lips against the side of your neck. He murmurs something there, his breath warm across your sensitive skin, but it is in his native tongue, and you don’t know that he meant for you to hear it even if you could understand it. 

You call his name softly, the sound nearly dying on your lips and he grunts in response, low in his chest and warm sounding, and you know it will be quite some time before he fully wakes. Your eyes close once more, and you allow yourself to revel in the feeling of this moment. Letting yourself go as residual sleep laps gently around the edges of your senses, knowing that when you wake again, it will be just as gentle as the time before. 

As much as you’d like your everyday routine to revolve around you and your newfound drive to learn to ride, it turns out that being the leader of a busy clan is a busy job. Thor is occupied during the day more often than he isn’t, riding off with his riders on scouting missions or meeting with the other elders to discuss important clan business, and it leaves you with more time on your hands than you know what to do with. 

Boredom is no stranger to you, having spent most of your adult life with Jakkor, your days crawling by perched atop a settee and allowed to do nothing but let your mind run wild. This is different, you think. There’s a restless quality to this boredom, where the kind you experienced with Jakkor was dreary. Unending and dull. 

You spend your days wandering through the camp and trying to make yourself useful where you can, ending up more often than not at the _hadaen okre_. You’re only just starting to take on the language, but the work there is simple enough that they set you to chopping root vegetables or grinding flour with a few descriptive hand gestures, and those that work there are generous enough to indulge your need to occupy your hands and to forgive the mistakes you frequently make. 

You know you will take on a role within the camp, and with every day that you wake and a role is not assigned to you, you become more determined to decide that for yourself. 

You are of singular focus, in that regard. Any time your mind wanders, you find it back to when Thor had held you back from the road and the _dikfonak_ had ridden by. Tall and proud on their mounts, exuding a level of assurance that felt altogether foreign but intoxicating to you. You want this, in a way you can’t exactly articulate, and the feeling of it flickers in you like a flame as you try to work out just exactly how to accomplish it. 

Today you find yourself at Zhaf’s tent, peeking your head around the draped canvas as the sun just pushes up past the horizon. She is tending to a woman seated on the elevated cot in her tent, her back to the entrance, and something warms in your chest at the sound of Zhaf’s laughter as they share a smile. The woman is with child, heavily, and Zhaf is kneeling before her with her palms spread across the round curve of her belly, murmuring something to it that you can’t quite hear. 

The woman looks up and then Zhaf does too, looking over her shoulder. Smiling brightly when she sees you standing there. 

“ _Zheana_ ,” she greets warmly, then says something you can’t quite catch to the woman, who smiles in response, lifting her chin in greeting to you. 

“ _M’ath_ ,” she says and you nod back and repeat the greeting back to her as best you can, which seems to please her. 

“Give me a few minutes, zheana?” Zhaf says. “We are almost done here.” 

“I can come back,” you say, but Zhaf blows a raspberry with her mouth and waves her hand. 

“Sit,” she says, motioning to the corner where some pillows have been stashed. “It won’t be long.” 

Feeling a little awkward, you make your way into the tent. Going to the corner and settling down on the big cushion there, curling your legs beneath you. Zhaf and the woman turn back to each other, though, and you find comfort in that as they promptly pick up the conversation wherever you interrupted it. Speaking rapidly back and forth in their native tongue, and though you catch a few words here and there, it’s easy to simply recline on the pillow and give them their privacy by letting their voices fade to the back of your mind. 

Zhaf’s tent has been a comfort to you ever since that first day you met her and it remains so now, the shadow of the pitched canvas cooling the air that drifts through on a gentle breeze. It smells of liniments and herbs and freshly laundered linens, of the earth but also airy and fresh. It’s the only place in the camp besides your and Thor’s tent that feels somewhat familiar to you and simply being in Zhaf’s presence, even as she tends to another, soothes you like a balm. 

Zhaf eventually pushes herself to her feet and moves behind the woman to the back wall of the tent. Scanning the shelves there until she plucks two small jars to hand, returning to the woman. She opens the first to show the woman, some sort of cream inside that you catch a wisp of scent from on the breeze. Zhaf rests her hand on the woman’s belly and nods, answering a question posed, rubbing her palm gently there. The next jar she opens contains something dry and leafy and you think you catch the word for tea in her explanation to the woman. 

They converse for a while longer, clearly not rushing for your benefit, and you allow yourself to feel a touch of relief at that. Still unsure where exactly you fit in this new clan. What others think of you, really, and not wanting to sow any discord. You watch as the conversation winds down and Zhaf threads her fingers affectionately through the woman’s hair before they embrace. You look down to your feet, to where your heels have dug small craters in the sand, to give them some privacy. 

When you look up, the woman is gone and Zhaf is wiping her hands with a damp cloth. 

“What brings you to me this morning, _zheana_?” she asks, coming back around the table to examine her shelves once more. 

Your mouth quirks in a smile you can’t hide. “Is it not enough to seek out the company of a friend?” you ask. 

She snorts in a soft laugh. “Sometimes, perhaps,” she says, moving the row of jars down to fill the spaces from the jars she gave to the woman. “Though you have a look on your face that speaks trouble.” 

You have a laugh at that too, easy and soft. Letting your hands drop to the ground below the cushion you’re say on to draw your fingers through the sand there. Not wanting to admit to her that she’s read you fully and completely, though she has done just that. 

The silence that falls then is companionable, as Zhaf busies herself with inventory and you draw what you think used to be symbols that spelled your name in the sand. Just being, quietly together. 

She’s right, though, you didn’t come just to talk, and it’s only a minute or two before you can’t keep to yourself any longer. 

“Do you know how to fight?” 

Zhaf’s hands still on the clay jars on her shelves. Her head turns slowly to look at you, her mouth crooked in a way you think means she’s amused by the question. “What a question to ask this early in the morning,” she says. “Why?” 

You shrug, inelegantly. Dragging your pointer finger through the sand, playing a little coy, though you know she sees through it. “I assume...they must teach you to fight, right? Living out here in the desert. You’re all so strong.” 

She turns to face you more fully. Slowly. Intrigue clear on her face, unsure where your line of questioning will lead. “They do,” she agrees, after a moment. “All children are taught to fight, though few go on to be fighters in the clan. I haven’t held a blade in many years, if that’s what you mean to ask.” 

You can’t stop the smile that spreads across your face. That was what you wanted to hear. “So you can teach me,” you say, and her eyebrows lift in question. 

“To fight?” she asks, and you shake your head, taking your bottom lip in your teeth. Already formulating a plan. 

“No,” you say. “To _hunt_.” 

It takes some convincing, including a long, drawn out conversation where Zhaf tries to convince you to ask one of the _dikfonak_ themselves to teach you but you take her hands in yours and beg her to help you without much dignity. Struggling to articulate to her that she is your closest friend and also the one in the village besides Thor with the best understanding of the common tongue and that the thought of struggling to learn with anyone else is too unbearable for you to even consider. 

She relents finally, rolling her eyes at you in a good natured way, and you end up on a sandy patch of land in the shade of the palm trees on the north side of camp later that day. Blessed with privacy as it’s just the two of you, the sun too high and hot for anyone else to loiter around, and an assortment of weapons laid out on the shaded ground before you. A spear, wooden handled and long, the curved blade of a sword. A short-tipped dagger with an ornamental sheath, a quiver full of arrows laid atop a bow. 

“Your instincts were right,” she tells you, like she’s reluctant to admit it as she takes a pull of water from a clay pitcher and then hands it to you for a drink. “The _dikfonak_ learn to handle their weapons on the ground before horseback. This spot out here is as good as any. The palm bark can take whatever you throw at it.”

To demonstrate, she stoops low to pick up the spear, it’s long, wooden handle worn smooth with wear, and hurls it at the nearest palm. It falters in the air, wobbling slightly as it leaves her hand, but the spearhead makes a hearty _thunk_ as it notches deep into the rough bark of the tree, lower and farther to the right than you think she aimed for.

She lets out a huff, cocking her head to the side. Unimpressed with herself. “I told you, it’s been a while.” She brings the spear back, tugging it from the tree trunk with a little effort, and hands it to you. 

It’s much heavier than you expected and you barely manage to tighten your grip before it falls to the ground. “Woah,” you mutter and Zhaf chuckles, taking a few steps back before crossing her feet and folding down into a sit onto the sandy, shaded ground. She leans back onto her hands and grins up at you when you turn to look at her, looking for direction. 

“Go ahead,” she tells you, nodding at the palm. Like she has an idea of how this will go but wants to see for herself. 

The spear doesn’t make it two feet when you throw it, clunking heavily to the sand, and she tips back onto the sand in easy laughter in response. 

On your fourth riding lesson, Thor allows you to use his saddle, and the added security that your feet in stirrups brings makes you want to sing. And, partially, to hit Thor for making you learn the hard way first. 

Rhaek walks dutifully around the dusty ring of earth, snorting boredly at the ground as you find your footing. Sinking your hips deep into the leather cradle of the saddle and bracing the balls of your feet against the rigid wood of the stirrups. 

Thor is walking beside you, eyeing the stirrups like he’s not sure if he should raise them another notch to suit you. “How does it feel?” he asks, and you can’t stop your snort in response. 

“Easier,” you say, pointedly, letting your hips move with the sway of Rhaek’s step. “Much easier.”

The corner of Thor’s mouth twitches. Amused with your annoyance, always. “You learned the way children of our clan have learned to ride for a century, little bug. Do you question our methods?” 

You chew on your bottom lip instead of responding, sensing he is trying to goad you into something, and focus instead on your grip on the reins and your center of gravity over Rhaek’s back. You sit differently in the saddle than you did bareback, your weight distributed at different points of your hips, but the feeling is familiar enough to you that you settle into it quickly. Letting your hips open and move in time with the rolling motion of Rhaek’s walk. 

You’re just about to allow yourself to feel something like pride for the confidence you feel, perched atop this monstrous stallion, when Thor speaks again. 

“Are you ready for more? Or do you plan to walk after prey with the _dikfonak_?” 

You shoot him a look that makes him grin, his teeth showing behind his lips, and it makes you want to throw a handful of sand at him. 

You gather up the reins anyway, gripping them tight in your hands the way Thor showed you. “What if I fall?” you ask, letting your eye drop down to the ground that’s slowly disappearing beneath Rhaek’s hooves as he walks. You think back to all the times you’ve galloped with Thor, his arm around your waist. It seems like falling at that speed would...hurt. 

“You won’t,” Thor says, and the surety in his voice makes you look up and over at him. Somehow, and you don’t know how, that is all you need. To know that he is certain you can. 

Your hands grip tight at the reins and you force yourself to relax them. “Okay,” you say. “Okay. What do I do?” 

If Thor is surprised by your willingness to risk life and limb atop his horse, he has the decency not to show it. He turns in place slowly, where he’s stood at the center of the clearing, to keep square to you and Rhaek as you walk around it. His countenance shifts, his voice edging serious as he walks you through it. 

“I make a sound to cue him forward. You’ve heard it?” 

You nod. It’s a soft mouth sound, something similar to a low whistle that carries away on the wind. But Rhaek hears it, every time, and it’s what drives him forward into a gallop. You can replicate it, you think, if you try.

“Gather your reins. Tight. Hold them tight and do not let them go,” he says, nodding when you do. “Sit deep. Sink your heels into your stirrups and move with him. Do not fight his motion, do you understand? Let him move you.” 

You nod again, your heartbeat starting to tick up in your chest. Nerves beginning to light along your spine. 

“When you’re ready,” Thor says, his voice steady but firm. “Press him between your legs and make that sound. Press hard.” 

You realize your hands have begun to shake a little, soft little tremors that Rhaek no doubt feels down the reins. You shift your weight in the saddle, gathering your reins up tighter, and Rhaek takes notice. His head lifting, his ears perked. Allowing you to gather more rein, which you do, until Rhaek’s neck is curved in an elegant arch. He begins to move beneath you, more than before. Moving sideways as well as forward on a sort of light prance, with growing anticipation. 

“Yes,” Thor says, and then, you press your legs against his ribs with all your might and let out a low, wobbling whistle that hangs on the still air. 

You draw in half a breath, and then Rhaek surges forward. 

It startles you, the suddenness of it, and you very nearly pitch out of the saddle at the rough gait Rhaek charges into. It’s chaotic and rocky, bouncing you all over the saddle, and you grab a frantic fistful of mane to keep from toppling to the ground, your teeth rattling together as Rhaek rushes forward around the clearing. 

It isn’t right - this isn’t how it feels when Thor pushes him into a gallop, and your heart is in your throat as you gather your reins to try desperately to pull him to a stop, when you hear Thor’s voice. Shouted, to be heard over the thunderous beat of your heart. 

“More!” Thor shouts, and you let out a frantic sound, starting coming loose in the saddle, but you press him between your legs once more and whistle as hard as your wrung out lungs can. 

Rhaek tosses his head and makes a deep sound from his chest and then takes one, two, three, four choppy steps, and _then_ …

...you begin to float. 

It feels, for a moment, like you’re falling. Suspended in the air, drifting through space, and you have a split second to make another panicked sound, before Rhaek’s hooves cascade against the hard packed sand below, sounding like a deafening crack of thunder, and you realize that you’re galloping. 

You realize you’ve been staring at the sand, so convinced you were about to fall, that you rip your head upright and only then remember to steer. Pulling the reins sharply to the right to keep Rhaek from going up the dune that makes up the perimeter of the clearing, sucking a rattling breath into your lungs to clear the spots from your vision. 

You’d been passenger to Rhaek’s gallop many times, but those times did not prepare you for the feeling of it. With Thor, you were subject to the whims of him and Rhaek. Along for the ride, kept in place only by Thor’s thick arm banded around your waist. Now, though. Now, you are stunned by the immensity of the power of it all. The strength of Rhaek as he surges forward and forward, his hooves thundering across the sand as you circle the clearing. He is under your control, unbelievably, and only just, but you have him. Between your two hands on the reins and your legs on either side of his chest, you have a force of nature. Brewing, bubbling, boiling over with rawness and wild, balancing on the hair’s edge of your control. 

You manage a glance over to Thor in the center of the clearing but you’re moving too fast to really see him as anything other than a blur. But he’s not shouting for you to stop nor moving in to intervene, so you force your lungs to draw in another ragged breath and look forward. Taking a second to gather yourself, now that you now you’re not falling. To center yourself in the saddle and to shake your head to clear it so you can focus on the mechanics of riding you’re still trying to commit to memory. 

Your vision is a touch clearer then, after you look forward and force yourself to breathe. You feel as if you’re holding back a cyclone with the reins, the muscles in your arms shaking with effort to keep Rhaek contained as he leans into the bridle and snorts loudly, his hooves crashing against the sand below. With your feet secure in the stirrups and your weight sunk into your heels, you’re able to perch above the saddle as you lean near all of your weight back against the reins gripped desperately in your hands. 

You steer him as best you can around the clearing, your shoulders already aching from the effort of containing him. His stride is massive like this, a chorus of thunder as his hooves collide with the ground and then a moment of perfect suspension, of being utterly weightless and floating, and then his hooves slam down again. Your father told you stories when you were a girl of a vast expanse of water, stretching farther than the eye could see. On this water, he’d said, were waves taller than a man that rolled across the sea, growing and cresting and falling in a perfect, crashing rhythm. All you can think, as the wind whips your hair from your face and you pull in a breath of fresh, free air, is that galloping Rhaek feels like riding one of those waves. Pure power and nature, roiling together in an impossible strength and force. 

Something moves in the corner of your eye and you realize it’s Thor stepping towards you, his hand raised. You let out a hard breath and lean every ounce of your weight back on the reins, murmuring to Rhaek in a shaky voice to _woahhhh_. It takes a few laps around the clearing like this, pulling back on the reins with all your might and telling Rhaek _woahh boy_ , _woahhh_ , until he finally begins to slow. Easing down into a loping canter and then, after another lap around, down into that bouncy, chaotic trot you had experienced before. After a half lap of that, bouncing you all over the saddle, he finally slows to a walk, exhaling hard out his nose and tossing his head as he does. 

“Hold him,” Thor says, his voice cutting through the sound of your roaring heartbeat, so you keep the reins tight and keep Rhaek in a walk that’s brisk and partially sidewinding. 

You let out a shaky breath and on it comes a laugh. Brittle and a little nervous but you look to Thor as Rhaek continues to move and what you see steals your breath all over again. 

He looks nearly as surprised as you are, his eyebrows up high on his forehead, but he’s shaking his head and _smiling_. Incredulous, like he can’t believe it, but bright, a soft little laugh coming from somewhere in his chest. 

You feel like the sun. You feel triumphant, as you bully Rhaek to stay in a brisk walk with an iron grip on the reins. Your chest is welling with something light and wonderful and you feel like you could burst. 

“Let it out,” Thor says, like he knows, and your mind hardly has a moment to process his words before you do. Before you tip your head back and let out a booming shout that feels like _victory_. 

Your shout goes up into the sky, into the dry, light air, and disperses as if it were never there. Like the desert sky swallowed it whole. You keep your head tilted back for a moment, breathing in, and laughing again on the exhale, reveling in the feeling of your blood pumping through your veins. Of the burn in your lungs as you catch your breath and the trembling ache in your shoulders as the muscles there strain from Rhaek’s strength. 

When you finally drop your chin again, Thor is there. Striding up to Rhaek with a purpose, a grin still bright on his face, and when he reaches for where you’re sat across Rhaek’s back, you go to him. All but throwing yourself at him, toppling off the side of Rhaek who grumbles a complaint and scoots sideways to avoid your flailing heels, knowing that Thor will catch you. 

He does, gathering you close and banding his arms beneath your thighs until you’re looking slightly down at him, breathless with the last echoes of your laugh. You let your arms wrap loosely around his neck as he turns you in place, creases around the corners of his eyes that are the color of the sky, and you’ve never seen him look this happy. 

“I did it,” you tell him, with very little humility, and he simply laughs. Nodding in agreement, and you can’t keep your eyes from the flash of his teeth, the brightness of his smile as he says, “You did.” 

You feel as if you could fly and it emboldens you. Leaning down and nudging your nose to Thor’s before pressing your lips to his in a soft kiss. “Better than the children you teach, huh?” you ask, when you pull back, and the look that crosses his face makes a peal of laughter erupt from your chest. 

“Yes, little bug,” he says, around an infectious chuckle. “Better than the children I teach.”

He’s lying for your benefit, obviously, but you can’t bring yourself to care before leaning down to press another kiss to his lips. Feeling in that moment as if you could fly as Thor spins you slowly in his arms, the world drifting slowly beyond, and you find the look he’s giving you nearly as exhilarating as the gallop on Rhaek. Bright and proud and full of promise, and you allow yourself the moment to take it all in. Unsure of when you’ll be able to make him look like that again but knowing, with every part of you, that you won’t rest until you’ve done it. 

Your success on horseback seems to buy you some indulgence, because when you ask Thor to stay a little longer, he conceded without much fight. He waters Rhaek, then removes his saddle and bridle and drapes them over a low-hanging tree branch up on the dunes surrounding the clearing. By the time he makes it back to you in the shade cast from the trees along the ridge, you’re laid out on your back on the sand. Your arm thrown over your eyes as you breathe easily, trying to keep an ear trained on the sounds of Thor and Rhaek, but feeling yourself drifting off before you even realize it. 

Thor snorts softly when he reaches you, like you’re being ridiculous. And maybe you are, but you remain stubbornly still. Hoping that if he thinks you’re asleep he’ll let you stay longer instead of waking you for the ride back to camp. You wait, your breathing intentionally slow and steady, for him to nudge you with his ankle, but it doesn’t come. 

You feel motion and then Thor is easing down beside you. Grumbling quietly to himself as he settles down beside you on the cool sand. Air brushes over your face and you shift the arm over your eyes to see his arm lift up and over you and when you lift your head to look at him, it slips beneath your neck. He lets out a sigh, sounding long suffering but you don’t particularly believe him, as he tugs you close to him and lets his open palm curve rest against your side. 

He lets out a deep breath, sounding like he does right before sleep takes him every night, and something blooms warm in your chest when you realize he means to stay like this. Laying with you in the afternoon sun on warm sand, shaded by trees overhead and cooled by a drifting breese. Dozing off together. Putting off the more important tasks he has back at camp to allow you this time, though you’re sure it’s not his idea of an ideal afternoon. 

You can’t help your smile, small and just for you, as you scoot closer to him. Turning towards him on your side and resting your cheek against his chestplate. Letting your eyes fall closed as you feel his arm shift as it settles around your waist, his fingertips brushing softly against your ribs. 

Over the sound of Thor’s steady breathing, slow and deep in rest, you hear Rhaek as he meanders slowly through the clearing. Snuffling along the sand for grass shoots, his tail flicking against his haunches every few minutes as his hooves thud softly against the sand with every step. Content to just be, it seems, just as you and Thor are. 

You let a fingertip trace a senseless pattern in the leather of Thor’s chestplate as you rest against him, your eyelashes brushing against your cheeks, and you think to yourself that at last, you’ve found it. 

At last, after all this time and after everything, you’ve found a happy place. 

You hear word early the next day that there will be a wedding ceremony that night and the spike in your excitement is immediate and consuming, nearly coming to your feet the moment you hear. You go to Zhaf’s tent as soon as you have a free minute, gathering through the words you’re able to translate from the chatter through camp that it’s a young couple, Vorso and Kezhi, that have been betrothed for some time, and Zhaf tips her head back in warm laughter when she sees the blatant joy on your face when you tell her the news. 

You don’t know either of the two names you hear passed around, but you find it doesn’t matter. Your joining to Thor was one of the most joyous moments of your life and you cannot wait to experience it from the other side. To partake in that same joy for someone else, someone who did the very same for you not long ago when you and Thor stood above the others and swore vows to each other of fidelity for eternity. Plus, you know that a feast will follow with food and drink and dance and you know Zhaf doesn’t understand why you’re so excited but you can’t even bring yourself to be embarrassed by it. 

You spend the day with Zhaf, needing to keep yourself occupied and having nothing better to do, and she keeps you busy with menial tasks that keep your hands in motion and your thrumming enthusiasm contained. You wash linens alongside her in a deep wooden trough, scrubbing blood and whatever else from them with coarse brushes and small tabs of soap, hanging them out to dry on lines that she zig-zags across her tent so they can dry in the breeze. She gives you a mortar and pestle and sets you to grinding various herbs. Looking over your shoulder as you work, telling you what each herb remedies and adding droplets of oil if the mixtures begin to dry. You focus intently on folding the linens as they dry, tucking them neatly into storage along the back wall of her tent, zoning out from the conversations Zhaf has with the few people that stop by to see her through the day. Wanting to give them privacy and to not keep Zhaf from her work as you fold crisp, white strips of linen into tiny, tight bundles for her later use. 

When the sun has begun to set, marching steadily down in the clear blue sky, she sends you on your way. Telling you to go get cleaned up and to meet her out on the western side of camp when you’re done for the ceremony, and you have to force yourself to walk instead of run back to your tent. Knowing that you’re acting childish but unable to stop yourself or bring yourself to care as you make your way back to where your change of clothes awaits you. 

You know what you’ll wear as you approach your tent, a dress made of a soft material that falls to your knees that you’d been gifted a week or so back, and you try to wrack your brain for where in the tent it will be as you lift the entrance of your tent inside. Locking into place when your head makes it inside the tent and you see that the overhead lantern is lit and casting bright light, and you see Thor there. Standing in the middle of the tentn Nude and tall. Rubbing a damp rag over his chest and the across the back of his neck. 

His eyes lift at the light that casts in around you before you let the tent flap fall back down, and then lift to yours as he brings the rag back down around his front. Leaving a wet trail across his skin and dampening the hair across the barrel of his chest, before reaching lower and - 

That jarrs you. Makes your mouth snap shut with a click of your teeth as your finally breaks from mind whirring helplessly at the sight of him there. Bare and broad and darkened by the sun. You exhale loudly, too loudly, as you step into the tent, and you watch as the corner of Thor’s mouth turns up in a way that makes you feel overheated. Like he knows, as you step into the tent and step pointedly around him. Looking in the corner for the dress you know you’re going to wear, ignoring the hot little flourish you feel low in your belly. 

You hear the sound of him getting dressed behind you and focus on changing yourself. Slipping out of your tunic and breeches and into the dress, which you’d found balled in the corner under a pair of Thor’s boots. When you finally turn back around, your insides still jumbled with something of excitement and nerves, you find him dressed in breeches and buckling his chestplate back on. The absurdity of him stripping down to wash himself to then simply redress in the clothes he was just wearing is not lost on you and you barely stop yourself from saying so as you walk past him. Feeling too wound up and not sure exactly what will come out of your mouth if you open it, but your face must say something indeed because Thor chuckles as you go past. 

You step out of the tent, feeling overheated and strange, and you let out a sigh when the cool breeze catches you once outside again. Holding your arms out a little and breathing in and out. Shaking your fingers to try to dispel the nervous tension there that you can’t determine the origin of. Whether you feel antsy and eager for the joy of the ceremony or from watching Thor’s hand, covered in a washing cloth, wrap around his heavy cock as he looked you in the eye, and you very nearly startle in your skin a little when Thor joins you outside. Looking down at you with a sort of amusement that is clearly at your expense, like he can see the turbulence you feel inside as plain as day on your face, and you want to push at him. Annoyed, but he chuckles softly again, and simply takes your hand in his. 

You fall into step beside him, glancing up at his face once before forcing yourself to focus on the task at hand. On the excitement that you feel building around you as you join others making their way to the west side of camp, a happy migration of people talking amongst themselves and anticipating the celebration to come. 

By the time you make it to the sandy shelves at the western edge of camp, you’ve all but forgotten about what happened in the tent. Bouncing on the balls of your feet instead as you keep pace beside Thor, your hand resting gently in his. Caught up in the moment as people gather around close, standing shoulder to shoulder as the sun begins to near the horizon beyond the far dunes. 

You’d been told, on your wedding day, that every bride in the clan receives the same treatment on the day of her ceremony, but you weren’t sure you believed it, until you see who must be Kezhi join Vorso and the wisewoman on the platform, escorted through the crowd to it by Aeshi and Ashi. Kenzhi is a vision in the golden sunlight, the beetle wings on her dress shimmering on every step as she takes her place opposite Vorso. You can’t help but squeeze Thor’s hand tight and rise up onto your tip toes so you can see a touch better. Too far from the couple to be able to hear the vows proclaimed by the wisewoman in her soft, wobbly voice, but not wanting to miss a moment as the couple takes each other's hands and smiles. 

Thor stands beside you, as tall and broad as he ever was. His face trained forward, but you can tell he’s watching you. Glancing down at you out of the corner of his eye every few moments, his mouth twitching like he’s trying to suppress a smile as he looks at you. 

This ceremony is over faster than you remember even your own, red powder pressed down the bride and groom’s face with care, and then a loud proclamation from the wisewoman that makes the crowd erupt in a surge of shouts and cheers that you can’t stop yourself from joining. 

The crowd comes to life then, moving around you like a wave, and you realize as the couple on the platform exchanges a kiss that you’d missed something at your ceremony. Too wrapped up with Thor tugging you close and pressing his mouth to yours to realize that the entire crowd did the same. You watch now as those around you turn to their companions, smiling bright and reaching for each other. Coming close and exchanging kisses, the atmosphere brimming with happiness and joy. 

You look to Thor, a little breathless, amazed, and he shakes his head a little at you, affection in the lines around his eyes as he tugs you close to him and curves his palm around your jaw. Leaning down over you, nudging his nose against yours, as you let out a soft gasp. Whispering something in his native tongue against your cheek, before he tips you back and presses his mouth to yours. 

Your hands come up to hold him, gripping at his wrists as he keeps you close, and when he finally draws back, you wobble on your feet. Blinking your eyes open slowly and feeling heat rush to your cheeks and the tingle in your lips as he looks down at you like he has half a mind to do it again. 

You look up to him, meeting his eyes, and shiver at what you see there. Nodding to him, tilting your chin up. Asking for him, and he meets you there. Kissing you once more, his lips parting over yours this time. Drawing yours apart with them, his teeth closing gently around your lower lip and making you lurch gently against him until he pulls back. Thumbing gently at the heated skin of your cheek as he helps you get your feet under you again, almost reluctantly, but then someone jostles you a little as the crowd begins to move towards the camp center for the feast.

He takes your hand in his once more, drawing you close into his side, and you begin to follow the current of people back into the camp for the celebration to come. Feeling your heart hammer in your chest as his fingers lace together with yours, something that feels like unfinished business in your chest as you stay tucked against Thor’s side and make your way back to where the smell of roasting meat and fresh bread is rising on the air. Feeling like you’re vibrating, on the inside and out, as you make your way inward. Not knowing exactly what the night ahead will bring but nearly trembling with anticipation to find out.

Thor takes his customary spot by the fire and you take yours in his lap. His hand comes around your waist to rest on your knee where your dress has ridden up, a typical motion that he’s done to you at the feast dozens of times, but the brush of his calloused palm against the skin there this time has you squirming quietly on his lap. Shaking your head to clear it and then making the deliberate decision to attempt to engage your neighbors in conversation in a desperate bid to focus on anything other than the slow slide of Thor’s fingertips back and forth across the inside of your knee. 

Your mastery of the clan’s native tongue is slow but coming along with some effort, and you manage a semblance of a conversation with the woman to the right of you who is generous enough to indulge you, speaking slowly and repeating herself when you struggle. You talk about all that you have the words for, remarking on the beauty of the ceremony, with which she agrees, and then asking her about her day. Nodding and trying to make sense of the words you’re able to understand as she tells you about it with deliberate care. She asks you about how you’re doing, and then about Thor, and you have to ask her for help there, until you realize she’s asking how your...relationship with Thor is. You sputter for a moment, feeling your cheeks heat again, and that seems to be all the answer she needs. Grinning at you knowingly and nodding like she understands, leaning back then to take a platter from her neighbor and to pass it over to you. 

The food is as decadent as it was on the night of your wedding, huge platters of roasted, steaming meats and plates of bread and hard cheeses passed around the fire. Fruits follow, sweet cubes of melon that explode on your tongue and make your mouth flush with saliva. You fall into your comfortable routine, taking pieces from each plate to taste and Thor doing the same, before passing the plates on to the person on your left. Leaning your shoulder against Thor’s chest when he motions for you to come close to he can press an especially good morsel past your lips. Wine flows freely, flasks passed in rotation around the fire, and you find yourself drinking from them deeply. Feeling wild and jittery underneath your skin and finding comfort in the dry sweetness of the wine and the sooth of it as it begins to go thick in your bloodstream. 

It’s gone dark by the time the couple retires for the night, and though you don’t remember the suggestive shouts and cheers from your wedding night, you can’t miss them now as those remaining around the fire call encouragements to them as they disappear into the darkness, hand in hand. 

You’re a little flushed with wine by then, feeling warm and loose where you’re sat on one of Thor’s thighs, your knees pressed in the space between his spread legs. You mean to look to him then, to ask what happens next, having missed this part of the festivities on the night of your wedding as Thor had been carrying you back to your tent for the night, but the atmosphere around the fire changes palpably after the couple disappears into the night, and you find yourself stilling on his lap. Feeling something shift in the air that you can’t quite articulate, and then you see a flash of skin from across the fire, and you see a woman there tip her head back as the man beside opens his mouth against her throat and reaches between her legs. 

Heat flares at the base of your spine at the sight, surprised, confused, but then you look and others have moved as well. Turning to their partner beside the fire and beginning to touch one another. Wandering hands caressing skin, soft mouth sounds slipping out into the air over the sound of the crackling fire that sizzle like an ember in your belly when you hear them. 

You go to turn to Thor, your breath catching in your lungs, your belly warming on something honeyed and heady, and his palm spreads across the curve of your rear and pulses. Gripping the flesh there in his hand and making your chin fall to your chest on a soft exhale. Your belly flipping as you force your eyes back up and to his, shivering against him when you see the heat in his expression. Lit by the roaring firelight, his eyes dark and hot. 

Another sound comes from nearby, a soft, feminine moan from someone around the fire, and it feels like a match struck in your stomach, a hot, low flare, and your mouth is already parting on a breathless sound when Thor takes your jaw in his hand and guides your mouth to his. 

You groan softly, your hand clutching uselessly at the flat leather of his chestplate as he presses his lips to yours in a heated kiss. It stuns you. Knocks the breath from your lungs to have him touch you in such a way, to do so in front of others not five feet from you, and yet you the thrill as it ridges up your spine feels fire as he nips at your mouth and draws you in closer. 

You’ve lost your breath in an instant, clinging to him as you trade kisses back and forth. Testing the other with pressure and flashes of teeth, drawing back to look into each other’s eyes as something begins to wind tight in your belly like a bow string. Feeling the air between you thicken and heat as you become more bold, letting your fingernails dig into his skin in a way that makes him let out a hard exhale.

You’re so lightheaded, so drunk with the heat of the moment, that when Thor begins to shift you on his lap, you simply go. Letting him turn you towards him, sliding your thighs on the outside of his until your hips shift over his and you face him fully. His hands touch at your sides, gentle, guiding you into place across his lap, and then drift down. Each palm sliding over the curve of your rear and gripping down tight. Pitching you forward in his lap and rocking you against him so that the ragged sound it pulls from your lungs is breathed against the side of Thor’s throat. You feel his heartbeat there beneath your lips, strong, and you chase it. Mindlessly pressing your parted lips against the skin of his throat, tasting the faint salt of sweat there with a flick of your tongue, and Thor _groans_ then. Under his breath but rumbling in your ear, his chest vibrating with it. 

When you get your palms on his chest to push yourself back slightly, he surges up to meet you. Capturing your mouth one more in a searing kiss that has you opening to him. Clinging to him as his lips part yours and his tongue tastes into your mouth. Teasing against yours as he exhales hard through his nose. Gripping you close and pulling you tight to him as his beard scrapes against your jaw and sends a shuddering thrill to your toes. 

When you feel your lungs are close to bursting he draws back, nudging his nose against yours possessively, murmuring something softly against your mouth and then pressing his lips to your jaw. Smearing wet, open-mouthed kisses there as your hands grip helplessly to his chest, jolting against him when his teeth close around the edge of it in a soft nip. He noses at the hair at your temple, breathing you in as his hands drift up your sides and then back down to grip at your rear. His breath hot against your skin as he ducks down then to press his mouth to your throat. Tasting at your skin there, his hand broad across your lower back as he tugs you closer still. 

Around you, the sounds of coupling have become unmistakable, warm skin against warm skin, yet they blur with the rest of your senses as you drift on Thor’s lap. Grounded to him there with the strength of his arms around you as your mind slurs on heat and wine, your head tipping to the side as Thor bites down on the curve of your neck. Breathing loudly through parted lips, too loudly in the cool night air, but you don’t even notice. Driven by instinct and feeling, needing something your mind cannot quite articulate but knowing. Knowing that Thor knows. That he’s here with you and that he needs it too. 

You shift in his lap, feeling your insides aching like a bruise, wanting desperately to rub your thighs together to relieve some of the insistent, ebbing pressure there, and as your knees slip farther past either side of his hips, his hand on your back slots you tight to him. Your entire body wracks on a violent tremble, your head tipping forward on a sinful moan to rest against his, as your hips snug tightly to Thor’s and you feel him _there_. Where your dress has rucked up around your waist. Where his cock is thick and hard in his breeches and presses against where you’ve got hot and slick for him. 

“Thor,” you whimper, your mind spinning. Gripping at him desperately, feeling as if you’re going mad. His mouth covers yours and you meet him, sucking on his lower lip as his hands grip your thighs and tug you down. Rubbing the aching heat of your sex against the bulge of his cock, and you nearly weep. Your voice breaking as you pull back again, whimpering his name against the wet heat of his mouth. 

You need, very suddenly. All at one and all consuming, you _need_. And Thor nods, he _knows_ , nipping at your mouth like he can’t help himself. Murmuring assurances there against your lips, and then he’s gathering his arms under your thighs and standing from his seat beside the fire. Shifting you until your arms drape around his shoulders and you press your cheek to his. Whimpering for him as he steps from the fire and into the darkness. Nudging your nose against his ear as he carries you away from the sounds of the others, of the harsh groans and the sounds of pleasure, and into the inky darkness of the camp. Gritting his jaw when he feels your lips close around his earlobe for a second, letting out a hard breath through his nose when he hears you whisper soft words into the hair at his temple. 

The cool air does nothing to sober you as he makes his way to your tent, only making you shiver closer to him. The moon is full overhead, casting the camp in a silvery light that makes his steps sure as he takes you home in long-strided steps. Stopping finally outside your tent and ducking low to get you under the flap inside. 

The interior of the tent is pitch black but you feel no fear. Holding to Thor and breathing in the smell of him as he walks you through it until you hear his shins bump the edge of the bedroll. He lowers you down until your back rests against the bedding, and then when he murmurs for you to do so, his mouth warm against your cheek, you release him and allow him to stand back up. 

You lay back, feeling as if the world is spinning below you, and stare up at the blackness above you. Your skin feeling prickly and tight, your thighs trembling as you feel yourself leak wetness onto the bedding beneath you. Flushing at the feeling, your hands wandering loosely over your stomach. 

Light flickers overhead as Thor sparks the lantern and lets it burn, and your head tilts to the side on the bed as you allow yourself to look at him. He looks every bit the warrior he is in this light, shadows casting around his features, yet the thrill you feel trickle up your spine is not one of fear. Not at all. Your lips part on a pant, on a whisper of his name, and he moves then. Working the straps beneath his arms and loosing his chestplate in a moment. Pulling it over his head and letting it crash loudly to the sandy ground. His eyes on yours as he steps from his boots and then his breeches, kicking them to the side. Your eyes drift on their own accord and land on his cock. Thick and hard, and you groan softly as you watch him take himself in hand. His cock filling up the breadth of his grip. Squeezing himself tight once before taking a step towards the bedroll and dropping his knee to it. 

The slide of his bare skin against yours is heated and swift and you find yourself overwhelmed at once. Squirming beneath him, your head turning to the side and your eyes squeezing shut, but he lowers himself beside you instead of shouldering his way between your thighs. Letting out a heated breath from between his teeth as he eases himself alongside you on the bed, propped up on an elbow. An arm coming to rest over your belly lightly, in a quiet sort of embrace. 

After a moment, you remember to breathe, your chest rising and falling, and you let your eyes open again. Meeting his and grounding yourself in the surety you see there in his. He’s there, with you. His eyes are dark but steady. Aware, of what he’s doing and who you are beside him. He waits a moment, blinking slowly as he looks down at you, until you whisper his name and lift a hand to his cheek. Drawing him down on a whimper until he presses a kiss to your mouth. 

It’s better, then, and your hand closes around one of his arms as he kisses you slowly. Pulling back every few moments to look into your eyes before returning, his lips hot and wet over yours. Drawing you out of yourself again in slow, ebbing increments. Tasting into your mouth with a flick of tongue, gripping you tight when you moan softly in response. Leaning into him and asking for more with a lift of your chin. 

His free hand finds where your dress is pooling around your waist and eases below the hem. Slowly, carefully. Drawing back and nudging his nose to yours to watch you as his palm spreads across your belly and your head tips back against the bedroll on a sigh. Feeling your insides begin to heat again as his fingers caress the skin there, a gentle sweep back and forth as he bites softly at your lower lip. He presses a kiss to your cheek, then one to your jaw, and you heat the change in his breathing as his palm drifts upwards and brushes against the curve of your breast. 

Sparks light along your spine at the feeling, and you open your eyes to look into his as he lets the edges of his fingers nudge gently against that sensitive skin. His nostrils flaring as he looks down at you, his abdominal muscles clenching down against your side, and when you give him the slightest nod, the faintest breath, his hand slides up and cups around the weight of your breast. 

You moan in unison, his eyes dropping closed and yours flying further open as the callus of his palm scrapes against the bud of your nipple and it peaks hard beneath the touch. His nose nudges against yours again and he whispers your name against your lips as his thumb strokes you there, catching on the stiff peak of your nipple, his palm pressing the weight of your breast against your ribs. 

Every pass of over of his thumb over you has little shocks lighting down your veins. Making you shudder beneath him, your lips falling open and your knees bending. Letting your head fall to the side as you grab at the hem of your dress blindly. Overheating suddenly, feeling trapped in it, and Thor does you a mercy when he lifts it up your body and then over your head, letting it fall to the floor beside the bed. 

Your entire body shudders as the cool air settles in around you and you watch Thor’s eyes drop down your form. Taking you in for the first time, lingering at your breasts, his mouth dropping open, and then farther down. He brings his palm back to your belly. Spreading it there again as if to ground himself instead of you this time, holding you steady beneath him as he looks up to catch your gaze again. Seeing the heat in your eyes, the confirmation he needed, before he leans down and lets his nose run along the edge of your breast.You whimper his name and he lets out a hard breath as he turns his head and takes you into his mouth. 

Your back arches hard, nearly painful as your hand finds the back of his head and grips into his hair. Groaning brokenly as his teeth close around your nipple and his tongue follows it. Drawing shivers of pleasure with every soft pulse of his lips around you. Feeling the cool air catching between your legs, cooling on the slick that’s leaking onto the bedding below, and you whine when he moves to the other. Closing his mouth around your other breast, teasing you gently between his teeth. Groaning softly against the skin there, his eyes fallen closed as he nurses softly like a man starved. 

When he draws back, he looks to you again. His eyes searching yours and finding you centered beneath him. Present with him and looking back to him with aching desperation. His hand on your belly spreads a little further, his thumb brushing down against the top of the soft curls between your legs, and you nearly cry. Your head thrashing against the bedding beneath you, a plea catching in your throat as your hips tilt off the mattress to meet him. 

He presses a kiss to your cheek, murmuring soft soothes against the skin of your jaw, and then his hand drifts lower. Your lower belly trembling beneath his touch, the muscles jittery beneath the slow drift of his hand. He moves without hesitation then. His palm sliding down between your thighs, and his eyes squeeze shut tight when his fingers glide through the mess of slick there. 

“ _Diwelat, naqis inte_ ,” he murmurs, sounding pained, as his fingers delve into the velvet heat of the folds of your sex. “You’re so wet.” 

You flush all over, sudden and heated, wanting to hide your face to hear him speak like that, but the reverence in his expression is clear when his eyes open once more and meet yours. He shakes his head a little, like he’s amazed, and then the pad of his finger presses against the seam of you. A delicate pressure that has something vicing tight in your belly, your back arching from the bedroll once more. He strokes there, the faintest breath of pressure, and it has your sex clenching down on nothing. Feeling hollow and achy, making you whine against the bedroll as his thumb touches softly to the sensitive spot at the crest of your sex and gives a gentle pressure. 

He holds you there for a moment, alternating between a sweet pressure against the crest of your sex and the press of a fingertip against your entrance. His eyes dark with desire as he works you gently this way, watching as sweat breaks out in the hollow of your throat and you squirm helplessly against the bedding. 

You feel... _pleasure_ , you remind yourself faintly, honey warm and pooling in your belly, but something in your core aches. Hard enough that your face falls, your brow drawing for a moment, and it has Thor pausing. Going still over you as his eyes search yours. 

“What do you need?” he asks you, his thumb moving to stroke against the skin of your inner thigh. “What is it?” 

You lick your lips and move your hips against his hand. Not wanting for him to stop, and he understands then. Resuming the gentle pet against your sex from before, his eyes still trained closely on your face. Your sex throbs again, a hard, empty pulse, and you whimper softly. Wishing you could make him understand what you yourself do not. 

“I - ,” you say, your voice catching in your throat. “I - feel... _ah_...it... _aches_.” You turn your head against the bedding, your voice breaking. 

Thor shifts himself beside you, and presses his hand harder against your sex. It makes you groan softly, nodding. Lifting your hips against his hand. Needing...more. Feeling the tip of his finger flirt with the slit of your sex and then feeling yourself clench down again, desperately. 

Thor watches you for a moment, his eyes impossibly dark. Then he leans down and presses a kiss to your cheek, as his palm against your sex shifts and lifts, and then the thick fill of his finger slides inside of you. 

Your head tips back as your back arches, a sinful moan falling from your parted lips as you feel as the press of his finger deep inside your sex. Slipping in easily and fitting deep, pressing against somewhere deep inside that has you breaking out in trembles all over. Your legs dropping open on either side of his hand as he holds you there. His finger inside of you stroking you gently as he keeps his eyes on yours. Waiting, for something, though you know not what. 

He presses another kiss to your cheek and murmurs a soft affection there, and then your voice breaks on a rough shout as his hand shifts again and a second finger snugs tight into your sex. His thumb strokes gently against the crest of your sex and your entire body wracks on a shudder as your hands fist in the bedding beneath you. 

It _aches_. It feels _good_. Your head tips against the bedding again as your sex pulses down hard around his fingers and you nearly cry from relief at the feeling. Impossibly full and split around the press of him, feeling like some deep part of you has been satisfied that you didn’t even know existed. 

Thor reminds you to breathe and you do, sucking in a loud breath as your sex clenches down again desperately, and then you feel as he turns his wrist and draws the two fingers inside of you back towards himself. 

You keen, your hips lifting from the bed to press hard against his hand, and his free hand pushes your hips gently back down.

“ _Affa, naqis inte_ ,” he murmurs against your jaw, and then his hand begins to move. 

It rips a moan from you, slow and loud and broken, your body arching off the bed then coming back down as he crooks his fingers deep in your sex and pulls against you in gentle, steady pulses. Alternating between that crooked pressure of his fingers pressed deep inside of you and a gentle press of his thumb against the bundle of nerves at the top of your sex. A steady, intoxicating pull and push that has heat gripping at your insides and pulsing along in time with his touch. 

You whimper for him and he goes and you beg softly against his lips, for what you don’t know, but he presses his mouth to yours and when his pace begins to build, you feel your fingernails press into your palms so hard you wonder faintly if you’ve broken the skin. His fingers inside of you are pressing against some part of you, on every firm crook, that is sending electric currents out and down your limbs, making the muscles your thighs shake where they’re parted around his hand. 

He moves faster, his mouth pressed to your jaw, and your breath begins to lurch in time with the thrusts of his hand. Rasping and quick, your chest rising and falling in frantic rhythm as he presses his fingertips against that sweet spot inside of you again and again and again, building something that’s fire in your veins with every pulse of his hand that feels like being pushed towards the edge of a cliff. It’s different than before, than the last time. Not just centered around your sex but swirling in your entire lower half. Ebbing and flowing, growing like a current, taking you with it, until he is letting out a hard breath and crooking his fingers hard. Pressing tight against that spot buried deep and _holding_ \- _holding_ \- 

His thumb swirls hard against the crest of your sex and then your back breaks from the bed on a hoarse shout. Broken and ragged as your muscles go tight, and then red hot heat floods your entire body as your pleasure rears and spikes, _blinding_ , and you feel a gush of moisture push free from your sex. Soaking Thor’s hand and the bedding, and you groan, confused, but then your whole body begins to pulse in violent, hard beats as your pleasure rips through you. Hard, vicious pulses around the thickness of his fingers, sounding sloppy and wet and making you whimper helplessly as your body wrings itself around his fill of you. Taking and taking and taking as your muscles tremble and your eyes squeeze shut as pleasure floods your every sense. 

You draw in a ragged breath as your body collapses back down to the bedroll, tears pricking at your eyes. Shivering all over as your body works through the last of it, and you turn blindly towards Thor. Seeking him and moaning softly when he meets you. His mouth pressing softly to yours, then drawing back as you let your head fall back to the bedroll below to pant. 

He pulls himself back slowly and the loss of the fill of his fingers is excruciating. Making you groan softly for him as he looks at his hand in the light and finds it glistening. Soaked from you, and you shiver, looking up at it. At the dark heat of desire in his face as he reaches down and takes himself in hand. Slicking up his cock with your wet, his eyes squeezing shut on a hard exhale as he does. 

He moves himself like he did before. Easing himself between your spread legs and leaning down to nudge his nose to yours as he fucks into the tight ring of his hand that’s resting against your pelvis, jostling you up the bedroll with the strength of his thrust. 

You lay back, your knees fallen to the bed on either side of him. Wrung out and warm, floating on the haze of your lingering pleasure. Watching him as he fucks his cock into his hand and then draws back, his brow twisting on his handsome face as he dips below. Rubs the hot, thick head of his cock against the slick mess of your sex, and you both moan. Loud, in unison, at the feeling. He goes again, his hips nudging against yours as he draws his cock through your folds, his entire body shuddering on the feeling of it. 

He leans himself down over you then. Putting an elbow near your head to prop himself up as he pitches your thighs over his and tilts his hips to yours. His cock slides against your sex, one firm press, and he curses lowly and turns his head to yours. Murmuring to you as he begins to bunch his hips. Nudging the cradle of his hips into yours as his cock slides against the messy wet of your sex. Not entering you, but fucking against you, and you feel his brow draw as if in pain as he gives himself over to it. Unable to stop himself as he grips your hip with his free and hand draws you back against him as his hips begin to move. Sliding his cock against the slick of your sex again and again, a rough feign of a fuck as his skin begins to slap softly against yours. 

You find your head tipping back on a groan, your hands lifting to touch his sides and gripping tight there. Heat sparking again along your nerves, delirious with the swirl of it in your veins as he ruts against you. You feel that ache again, deep inside of you, hollow and empty, and you find yourself shaking your head. Reaching for his face and bringing his face to yours for another kiss. Breathing around every hard rut of his hips as he knocks the breath from you. The ache sounds again, a hard, bruising pulse between your legs, and you let out a soft cry. Nudging your nose to his and kissing him again. Breathing out against his mouth, “Thor, Thor. Please - yes - ”

Thor lets out a rough sound, a ragged breath, and draws back. His hips trembling where he stilled them as he captures your gaze with his, his brow drawn low on his face. Drunk with desire but grounding himself at once at the sound of your voice, searching your face for any sign that you don’t know what you’re saying. What you’re asking him to do. 

You reach for him and he goes to you. Letting you draw him back down over you. Shivering beneath his weight and nodding, murmuring against his cheek, telling him yes, asking him please, as the space between your legs aches like a wound. 

He reaches low and takes himself in hand, gripping himself tight on a grunted, pained sound. He nudges his nose against yours and kisses you as he presses the heat of his cock against you, where you’re slick and needing him, and when you nod again, a soft little jerk of your head, he presses his forehead to yours and bears down. 

A moment of pressure, impossible and immense, and then your body opens to him. He slides into you, thick and full, and it knocks the breath from you both. Both lurching on a gasp as his cock fills you, fills up every inch of you tight, pushing all the air out of your chest as your hands come up to grip at his arms. Clinging to him as you breathe through it, tremors coming over you as pleasure crashes over you anew. Sudden and unexpected and consuming, making you moan through gritted teeth as your body clenches around him greedily. Gratefully, as he pulls in a raw breath and draws back, then plunges in again. His chest rising and falling against yours like he’s run a great distance as he holds himself over you. Shaking with the effort to try to keep himself still. 

Your hands claw at the bedding beneath you as the current in your body catches fire and slices through you, and just like that you’re crying his name like you’re in pain as another wave of pleasure crashes over you. Makes your body throb around the thick of his cock on hard, angry pulses as your head slams back against the bedding and you moan in beautiful agony. 

Thor growls, low in his chest, like he’s lost himself in it, and he takes your hips in his hands and begins to fuck you. Slow and deep, hard, purchasing ruts of his hips that jostle you up the bedroll with every thrust, grunting out through gritted teeth as he does. Trembling with the effort of holding himself back as your went sex flutters and milks at his cock on the last waves of your pleasure. Begs for him to find completion there in the slick, tight heat of it, where you need him. 

This is nothing like you’ve ever felt before. The slide of him inside of you feels like everything, like he is finally where he should have been all along. Moving within you, moving over you. Marking his claim over you as your body begs and begs for him and welcomes him for more. You know now, as you feel the stretch of his cock and the hard rhythm of your bodies moving together, that you were meant for this. Meant for him, somehow. That this is where you were always supposed to end up, clinging to him and whispering his name as your body wrings out the last of your pleasure around the thick press of him. 

You know now, that this is home. Your home. That he is your home. 

Thor goes still when he finds his release, an animalistic sound wrenching from his lips as he stills over you. His muscles locking rigid as his cock pulses inside of you. Filling you with lashes of hot spend as his hips nudge yours on every jump and spit of his cock, like he can’t quite stop himself from doing so. It makes your eyes roll back, every muscle in your body trembling at the feel of him filling you up. 

When he finally draws from you, you whimper softly, feeling that emptiness at once. Reaching down between your legs to touch at where you’re puffy and slick, your cheeks flushing when you feel the hot trickle of his spend there. 

He takes a moment to return to himself, breathing heavily as he nudges his nose against your cheek. He lets himself down onto the bedroll beside you, his gaze searching for yours as he does, taking your jaw in gentle hand when he finds it. There is a question there, unspoken, his brow drawn a little as he looks at you, and you shake your head to him. Your heart ablaze in your chest as you lean into him and press your lips to his cheek, then to his mouth. You know what he means to ask, and you hope you communicate to him that he needn’t ask it.

When he draws back again, he swipes his thumb over the swell of your cheek gently. Looking down at you like he can’t entirely believe you. Like you amaze him, somehow. He kisses you again, like he can’t help himself, and then settles back against the bedroll. 

An easy silence descends between you, listening to the roar of your heartbeat in your ears, and you let your eyes go distant on the inside of the pitched tent ceiling. Wondering, not for the first time, if this is all a dream. If you’ll wake in the morning and find yourself next to Jakkor, the real world crashing back down around you. 

Even if, you think, as you let your eyes drift back over to Thor. Your husband, so strong and bold. Even if, you would have the memories of this fever dream and those, you think, would see you through even the darkest times.

You know in some part of you that you should get up, to wash yourselves and to have a drink of water. You’re both filthy. Covered in sweat and slick, and the lantern flickers overhead, but you can’t bring yourself to move, and neither can he. The night air that begins to settle around you is cool and you find yourself turning towards him instinctively. Curling up against his side and resting your cheek over the beat of his heart. 

He lets out a quiet breath, that sounds contented, and you feel his fingertips trace lightly against your back, and you know that sleep will come for you swiftly, like this. Held and secure in his arms, protected from the cold outside and from your own demons. You let your eyes fall closed and listen to the steady beat of his heart. Knowing that it will send you off to a peaceful slumber, and eager to see what the next morning brings.

It’s midday at the _hadaen_ _okre_ and you’ve been assigned to de-hulling grain so it can be ground to make flour. It’s a job you’re grateful for as it requires a little effort, grinding handfuls of grain on a stone slab with a stone roller, and you need something to occupy your mind. Your whole body aches from the night before but in a strange, wonderful way, and you need a task to focus intently on to stop yourself from looking up at every person who passes the hadaen okre to see if it’s Thor. 

You’re acting like a young girl perhaps, feeling your eyes go distant and your hands still as flashes from the night before filter through your mind as you work, before you force yourself back into it. Shaking your head and biting your lower lip to keep from smiling stupidly to yourself. 

You’d awoken late this morning, stirring only after the sun was well into the morning sky, to find Thor stepping into his breeches beside the bed. You had frowned then, sleepy and confused, and called for him softly. He had come to you at once, dropping a knee down onto the bedroll and leaning into you. Touching his forehead to yours, pressing a kiss to your cheek and murmuring “ _M’ath, qoy qoyi_ ,” against the skin there. When he’d pulled back, his expression was warm and fond, and it had made your heart flip in your chest. He’d told you to rest then, touching his palm to your jaw before stepping back and reaching down for his chestplate. 

You’d managed to remain in bed another hour, drinking water from the pitcher beside the bedroll to try to stem the headache blooming at the base of your skull, but eventually made it up and went out into the camp, searching for something to occupy your time. Still a little dazed from the night before, and feeling like everyone in camp could know it just by looking at you. 

Now you have your sleeves rolled up over your shoulders and you work the stone wheel back and forth, perched up on your knees so you can put your full weight into it. The hulls of the grain are tough, sharp things, and it takes several passes for the buttery seed within to separate from the broken husk. You have a good amount sorted already, working hard enough for sweat to prickle underneath your arms, and you’re just about to ask the woman to the right of you for more stalks of wheat to process when a commotion makes you look up. 

There’s a gasp up ahead, a soft, surprised sound as a woman steps back out of the middle of the road between tents, and then a man on a horse comes barreling through. Galloping through the passageway, recklessly, the horses hooves thundering on the sand and kicking it up. Too fast for the small space, overturning a pile of buckets at the corner and spilling water, and then everyone is concerned. Rising to their feet as the man on the horse disappears through the camp towards the center, murmuring to each other and frowning as people look down the pathway through which he so frantically rode. 

You don’t ride faster than a walk within the boundaries of the camp, ever. There are too many small children toddling about and old people feeling their way through the streets to do so safely, and the rising conversation of the clanfolk around you has you getting to your feet too. Looking to the people around you and feeling something of a small pit in your stomach at the concern you see in their expressions. Something is wrong. 

There is a pause, a hush falling over the crowd as people wait for something you don’t know, and then a horn sounds. Loud and bellowing, echoing through the quiet afternoon air, coming from the camp center, and when your head snaps to look in that direction, something crashes, loud and sudden, and then a pillar of dark, thick, black smoke erupts up into the sky. 

There’s a moment where no one scarcely breathes, and then someone shouts, hurried and fearful, and then everything begins to move. You watch, stunned into stillness, as every person in your line of sight leaps up and forward. Women grabbing children and hurrying them off, men and women alike standing from their work and rushing towards the camp center. The atmosphere turning in an instant, tension drawing through the crowd like a knife, and you find yourself being rushed along with the others. Jostled as you manage to step out into the street and then following the current of people as they hurry forward towards that dark pillar of smoke that is still rising in the sky from the center of camp. 

You try to understand the conversations around you but they’re spoken too quickly for you to catch more than a few words here or there. All you can tell is that something has gone wrong, dreadfully, terribly wrong, and it has your heart in your throat as you are swept along with the throng of people as they move through the camp. 

Once you reach the camp center, you join the crowd that’s milling there, unable to take your eyes from the firepit that’s overcome with black smoke. Billowing and spiraling up, throwing off heat and ash, a dark spectre against the clear blue sky overhead. Making you cover your mouth with your hand as you feel the thick haziness of it stick heavy in your lungs. 

Thunder sounds over the low murmur of conversation in the crowd and you watch as a pathway clears, people leaping out of the way just in time for more horses and riders. Coming from east and galloping into the camp center, where the crowd ripples and moves to make room for them. 

There’s a dozen of them and your breath lodges tightly in your throat when your eye finds Thor on Rhaek, turning him in a tight circle as Rhaek bellows. The sound grips you, guttural and deep, rips you back through time to when you first heard it - when Thor had first charged into the village and found Jakkor frozen in fear on his throne. It’s the sound Rhaek makes before a fight, and you feel your blood turn to ice as you see the battle axe gripped in Thor’s hand. 

Thor’s expression is that of an animal, not a man, his mouth a snarl as he shouts at the men around him, who you see now are his riders. Blades in hand, mounted on snorting, stamping horses. Giving them orders, it seems, as the camp watches with bated breath. Thor shouts something to the crowd then, something you can’t understand, and as he turns Rhaek in another tight circle to keep him from rearing, his eyes catch yours. His eyes are bright with cold fury, and you can’t breathe as Rhaek spins and turns him away from you once more. 

There are more shouts, more sand kicked up by churning hooves, and then Thor spurs Rhaek on and the riders surge ahead. The crowd parting to let them through as they rush forward towards the west, through the camp in a moment, their horses snorting and screaming, and then out onto the barren sandy plains beyond. Galloping away from camp, out into the never ending expanse of desert that stretches farther than the eye can see. 

There are shouts then, again, and the crowd comes to life once more. People moving with a speed and purpose, the faces you see drawn grim as they set to work on some unspoken understanding. You watch, rooted helplessly to your spot, as people appear back in the camp center wearing armor. Leather chest plates and arm gauntlets, blades gripped tight in their hands, and your belly sours as you begin at last to understand. Something is coming. 

The parallel to your former village is impossible to ignore and the pit in your stomach sharpens like a blade’s edge as you watch your people move this way and that. Your mind flashing back to it, the frantic screams in the air, the panicked scattering as people realized all at once they had no defenses, and nothing of value to even defend, but for their lives. You remember the blood and the carnage that followed, the stench of blood and ash coming over you from memory alone, making your stomach flip and sour. You realize you can’t recall how long ago that was. Whether it was a month or a year’s time, since your world turned upside down.

This is different, you think, blinking back tears brought on by the hazy smoke in the air, your feet frozen to the ground as you watch. There is no panic here, just a rehearsed sense of urgency. Everyone in the camp seems to know what they must do and seems to know they must do it quickly, all working together in a hushed, focused chaos. Moving children and the old towards the middle of the camp and moving those of able body outwards, towards the outer boundaries of the camp.

Hands grip your shoulders, shaking you a little, and Zhaf’s face comes into sharp view. 

“ _Zheana_ ,” she says, relief in her expression somehow, like she’d been looking for you. 

You remember to breathe, seeing her face, and you bend in half to cough violently as you feel ash from the smoke settling heavy in your lungs. “What’s happening?” you manage, her hand resting on your back as you cough again. 

Zhaf looks over her shoulder, to the west. “ _Dozgosor_ ,” she tells you, turning back to you. Her mouth a grim line. “An enemy hoard approaches.” 

You follow her eyes, stomach dropping down to your feet, and look out to the sands. You see Thor and his riders, now distant dark blurs, galloping out into the desert, and beyond…

Past them, nearest where the sky meets the sand, you see it. A plume of whirling sand, stretched along the horizon. As if a band of riders is racing towards camp, two dozen strong. 

Your blood goes thick and cold, nausea creeping in around the edges of your senses, and you can’t stop yourself from seeking Zhaf’s gaze. Desperately seeking some form of comfort, your hands gripping at her forearms as your knees begin to feel weak. “What do we do?” you ask. Voice barely audible. 

Zhaf takes one of your hands from her arm and turns it face-up, placing something there and closing your fingers around it. When you look down, you see your hand gripped around the hilt of a dagger, tucked into a leather sheath. You tug on the handle and draw it out, staring as sunlight glints off the sharp, steel blade. 

Zhaf takes your head between her hands, drawing your eyes back to her. Serious as she holds your gaze with her own, like she needs you to listen carefully. “People will fight, _zheana_. If any manage to make it past our riders, they will meet blade and fire here.” 

Around you, people are gathering. Warriors, it seems, dressed for a fight in light armor, testing their hands around weapons they have not held in some time. Men and women alike, focused and grim, as they gather in the camp center and look westernly. Zhaf calls your attention again. 

“Stay back, _zheana_. You’ve improved with a spear but you are not trained for this. Stay back, but be ready.” 

You cough again, your lungs burning around the smoke in the air, your eyes watering from it. “Be ready?” you ask. 

Her hand closes around yours where you’re gripping the dagger. She nods. “Be ready. If anyone comes for you that is not of this clan, you are to fight, with everything you have. Do you understand?” 

Your knees wobble and you blink back the water in your eyes from the smoke. You nod, weakly. Somehow knowing that she’s about to leave you. 

She takes a step back from you, and your heart lurches. “Stay back,” she says again, her hands covering yours, squeezing once before letting go. “Stay hidden, and fight. If they find you, you fight.” 

“Okay,” you manage, your voice raspy with the smoke, and she gives you one final look, before she turns and jogs off, back into the camp. You watch her go until she disappears around a corner, and then you turn numbly back to the scene before you. Where warriors are gathering together and moving forward, towards the western side of the camp. Two dozen strong, perhaps. 

Not knowing what else to do, you stay there. Frozen in place and time as the camp whirls in preparation around you, fading into a blur as you feel the distance pull at the edges of your consciousness. You watch as the group of men and women prepare themselves to fight, and you wait, the dagger gripped tightly in your hand. Wondering, as your shove down the urge to vomit into the sand, if this is how this journey ends for you. Just as it began, in smoke and ash and fire and blood. 

You’re able to see the western edges of the camp from the center so you watch dimly as the armored men and women go to the outskirts there. Heavily armed but lightly armored, moving freely as they take to some preparations you don’t quite understand as you try to keep up with their movements at their distance. They work together, bending low over the sand beyond the outskirts, burying something that you can’t see, and you watch as they finally stand. Satisfied, apparently, and spreading themselves out in a line. A human chain around the western edge of the camp, their blades glinting in the afternoon sunlight. 

For a time, nothing happens. A hush descends across the camp as people settle in to where they need to be, and everyone holds their collective breath as time passes slowly. A drip, drip, drip as the tension in the air goes taut and thick. 

You feel your mind begin to fade on you, and you grit your teeth and stand your ground. Cycling through every method you have to remain in yourself, mentally going through each sense and describing what you’re feeling, from the burnt taste of ash on the air to the sound of the breeze flapping through the canvas of the tents behind you. The weight of the dagger in your grip, the softness of the leather wrapped there, the chalky film of grain dust that’s still clinging to your tunic and hands. 

You need to be here, for whatever happens next. You can’t go deep inside yourself and hide from this, where you are no help to anyone. Nothing but a liability as you watch the people of your clan stand tall and strong and ready to defend their home. You know not if you can help in any way, but you know you need to try. You need to stay here, in your mind and in your body. Ready, for whatever comes. 

Motion at the edge of camp catches your eye and you look, seeing the group there shifting on your feet. Beyond, you see sand swirling up in the air, kicked up by thrashing hooves, and you see the shape of riders coming fast. Galloping across the sand, three or four of them stretched out in a line. 

Relief feels like a drug, flooding your veins in a rush, and you very nearly take a step forward to welcome your riders back, wanting to go to them, before you realize the warriors have not moved. Their stances harden, their shoulders broadening, and that rush of relief turns caustic in your blood as you realize that the riders coming are not your own, but those of the enemy horde. 

Blood rushes to your ears as the realization turns your stomach to acid, your grip on the dagger slipping a little as you stare helplessly at the coming tide. Realizing, slowly, that this means those riders got past yours. That the enemy horde met yours and that only the enemy horde remained, flying across the sand towards you, their blades outstretched and sharp shouts carrying on the wind. 

You nearly stumble back, and the dagger does fall from your hand then. Dropping softly to the sand below as your body begins to tremble. Your heart seizes in your chest and thunders, rabbit-quick, as images flash through your mind, unbidden. Of Thor, fighting from across Rhaek’s back. Roaring with every broad sweep of his axe, slicing through leather and bone. Of Rhaek being struck down with the hard stroke of an enemy sword, of Thor being thrown down to the bloody sand. Of Thor fighting and _fighting_ , Rhaek screaming and bellowing from where he fell, of an enemy blade catching Thor in the neck - 

The darkness comes at you in a rush then, surrounding you like a thunderclap. You claw desperately to stay present, gasping in a ragged, ashy breath, and shake your head to try to clear it. Needing to stay, needing to be _ready_ , watching as the line of enemy riders closes in on the outskirts of the camp. 

None of the warriors on your side of camp move, and it makes you want to scream to them. To tell them to look, to be ready, for the stormfront of bloodshed and violence flying across the sand at them. Unable to understand why they are just standing there, _waiting_ , for the carnage to come. 

The enemy riders, riding side by galloping side, pass by the first structure on the western outskirts of camp, and then the group of warriors duck low, all at once. Grabbing something buried in the sand and wrenching it up over their heads. 

A rope erupts from the sand, springing upwards and pulled tight, just as the first enemy horse sets a foot over it. You watch, in slow, unraveling horror, as everything happens at once in a violent, screeching crash. 

The line catches the legs of the enemy horde’s horses, rope burning tight and twisting, and you watch as all four horses pitch forward in near perfect unison. Their feet swept out from beneath them, their heads crashing towards the ground as their riders lift their hands frantically to brace for the sudden, violent impact. 

The collision of the enemy horde with the ground sounds like thunder, booming and echoing off the sand, and the force on the rope sends the clansmen and women holding either side flying. The rope slicing through their palms and flinging them with the force of it as several tons of horse and man tangle with the rope and slam viciously into the ground. 

There are screams then, and the darkness encircles you once more. Crowding around the edge of your vision as you gasp in shallow breaths of hot, sticky air, your eyes taking in the scene before you, as the enemy riders manage to get to their feet and lunge ahead, blades swinging in great arcs, but all you can think in your mind is of Thor. Thor gone. Thor hurt. Thor laid out in the desert sand, his strong heart pumping blood through his veins and leaking out to the hot ground below through the slashes in his skin as he stares up at the blue sky and thinks of his people. Of his home. 

Your vision begins to tunnel as you see the first enemy blade slice through the flesh of one of your people, and you can’t bring yourself to fight it any longer. Taking a stumbling step back, then two, as the hurt in your chest shoots through your body like water splashed across a boulder. Reaching for the darkness instead of fighting it. Desperate, aching, for sanctuary from the grief gripping tight at your lungs and clouding up your vision as you realize that the life you have come to love has ended. That the next time you see Thor, he will be cold and gone and laid out on a funeral pyre. 

Your feet fail you and you tip backwards. Crashing against the canvas of a tent and collapsing to your hands and knees. You manage to crawl some, away from the harsh, clanging sounds of battle and death behind you, before the darkness comes for you finally, and you very nearly weep with gratitude.

Time passes strangely, when you’re in the darkness. You drift, without any sense of where you are or what is happening around you. Floating along in your mind in deafening silence, in a space that is light and dark all at once. Nothing and everything, a void where what thoughts you manage to string together sound muffled and unintelligible and distant. 

Nothing hurts here, no physical sensation nor mental anguish able to pierce the barrier of your cocoon, and you simply float. Drifting through nothingness and feeling nothingness entire. All consuming and comforting in that numbness. 

Nothing matters and nothing hurts and nothing here can touch you. And so you float and drift and exist. Numb and unseeing, unfeeling. Simply existing within yourself until such a time that you die or you are wrenched from this comfortable numbness back into the harsh light of the real world. 

You find yourself hoping, this time, as your mind powers down and goes distant, for the final, sweet release of death. 

Rough hands on you stir you. Jostle you in your quiet place inside your mind. Upending the endless equilibrium of the void within yourself as you’re shaken quite hard. You feel glimpses of your body, distant and fuzzy, like your head lolling uselessly to the side as something lifts your body from the ground. Your hearing is muffled, the sound of chaotic noise trapped around the edges of your closed-in conscious, like hands slamming against thick glass. 

You struggle, in the void. Your face collapsing in a grimace as you flail within yourself. Feeling faint pulls and pushes of the real world on your body, hearing the muffled shouts and screams from out there. Unable to see, unable to know. 

Hands are on your body. You can make that much out. Large hands that are rough on you, and your consciousness spikes through the void like an arrow shot from a bow. Zhaf’s words rushing back to you all at once, _if they find you, you fight_ , and you struggle helplessly against the binds of the darkness on your senses. 

You draw in a gasping breath, your lungs in your body burning, and you hear a voice near your ear. Sounding as though it is shouting, harsh language you can’t understand, making you want to curl away from it. To hide your face behind your hands and shrink away even as some distant part of you _screams_ at you to _fight_! 

A light tendril of scent manages to trickle into the void. Just a whisp of something on the air that caresses against your cheek as you float. It feels familiar somehow, like a remnant of a distant memory, and you find yourself turning towards it. Seeking it with your nose lifting on the air. Feeling it tingle along the back of your tongue, an earthy, musky smell. 

Hands shake you again, your brain rattling in your skull as your head lolls, and as hands grip either side of your face, the scent catalogues in your fuzzy mind. Clicking into place all at once, sudden and consuming, and in an instant you’re _flailing_ in the void. Scrambling within yourself, in the hollow recess of your consciousness, because that smell is _Thor_. 

Light cuts through, bright and and blinding and you flinch back as your eyes finally blink and let the light in. Your vision narrowed to two tiny pinpricks that seem impossibly far, but you see swirls of color and blurs of motion that you know are the real world beyond the darkness. 

A voice begins to clarify, over the background chaos, tinny in your ears but known to you and you struggle hard to try to make out what it’s saying. You can’t understand the words but the cadence is familiar, and after a blurred, distorted moment, you realize it’s the native language of your clan. 

You feel motion around you, the faint tickle of hair on your cheek and a weight on your chest like someone has pressed their face to it, and then hands on your face tighten again. The voice warbled but the motion washes that scent over you again and you _know_. You know, that Thor is there. Somehow, that you’ve met again, either on earth or in some afterlife, and you begin to claw at your consciousness with all your strength. Fighting desperately to return to yourself so you won’t miss whatever this is. 

The pinpricks of your vision expand, a little, then more, and you realize you’re on your back, your head tipped back, throat bared. Your face pointed at the clear blue sky. A dark blur goes past, a bird, you think distantly, and then the hands framing your face pull you down and a face suddenly comes into view. Blurry around the edges, but clarifying, and you feel a sob loose from somewhere in your chest when you realize that it’s Thor. 

The expression on your face makes you want to reach for him, but you are so far gone from your body that all you can do is lay there as he cradles you in his arms. Blinking slowly, stupidly up at him as he hovers over you. The look on his face is raw with grief and pain, the lines around his eyes and over his brow deep, heavy creases. There is blood on his face, spray and smear and dripping, and you wonder to yourself if you’re dying in this moment, or if he is. If he was somehow mortally wounded in the battle but made it back to you by the power of his will, so that he could give you one last goodbye. 

You wish desperately to stay here with him for whatever this is, needing to be here with him while you can, but the naked pain in his expression has the darkness crowding in again around your senses. Knowing, somehow, that this is a farewell of the most painful measure and one you cannot stand to witness. One you will not survive. 

It is a mercy done for your benefit as the void shrouds you once more, even as you kick and fight and scream for Thor. Trapped within yourself as everything again goes soft and distant and dark. 

Consciousness rips back to you after sometime, lurching you from the dark cocoon of your mind back to the forefront, where your senses are on a hair’s edge. Tingling around the edges of your mind, no longer faint and hazy. 

A scent has brought you here. Caustic and bitter and toxic and filling your nose and lungs and making you suck in a rasping breath, your entire body lurching as you gasp for fresh air to fill your lungs. 

A sense of turbulence kicks in, unsteady and fluid, and you feel that you’re in someone’s arms again when the smell returns. Suffocating as it fills your nose and makes you wretch, wanting to twist away from it and press your face to the ground to try to seek clean air to breathe. 

Your eyes fly open and the blinding light makes you flinch back, and then over the din of the chaotic backgrounds, you hear a familiar voice. 

“She’s there,” you hear, fuzzy around the edges, but then two faces come into view, and you’re able to focus on them with some effort. 

Thor again, and Zhaf. Both staring down at you, their faces dark with some emotion that makes you want to look away. Concern reads in their expression like they screamed it, something like fear tightening up around their eyes and the corners of their mouth, and your tired mind can’t make sense of it. Trying to figure out what could have gone wrong to have them looking that way, wanting desperately to be able to ask them what is troubling them so. 

You grip hard at the edges of your consciousness and struggle with it. Fighting hard to get back into your body, where Thor has you cradled in his arms. Needing to be able to reach out and touch him, even if it’s for the last time. Even if something worse is yet to come, you need to be here with him now, and you scream in your mind against the binds of the void. Kicking and fighting to be free. 

Your hand spasms where it’s resting on your chest, your fingers flexing hard and sudden, and Thor takes it into his at once. Squeezing back, his eyes still searching your face with a quiet desperation. Zhaf says something to Thor and touches his shoulder, casting one last worried look down at you before she stands and leaves your line of sight. The caustic smell leaves with her and you drag in a ragged breath, your chest expanding as you taste the relief of clean air. 

Your senses come back to you slowly, one by one. Your view widens incrementally, taking in more sights (Thor, a thick gash along his hairline that is oozing blood, a constant flurry of motion beyond as the people of the camp race about), more smells (Thor, again, earthy and warm, and beyond that, the bitter stench of the black smoke, still hanging thick in the air), more sounds (people shouting and running, horses whinnying, a baby crying).

Thor is speaking to you, you realize after a moment, and you focus all of yourself into staring at his mouth. So that you can hear him. Understand him, even as his voice sounds like he is speaking to you through water. 

“ _Jadat, naqis inte_ ,” he murmurs, holding your cheek in his palm. “Come back to me, little bug.” 

You begin to filter back into your body, piece by slow piece, and you grip your hand in his as tightly as you can. To let him know that you’re trying. You’re trying. 

As the tunnel of your vision clears completely, edging out slowly with each passing minute, you are able to orient yourself in space and time with some effort. Your mind feels as if it’s made of molasses as you try to make sense of everything, of the chaos that surrounds you. 

You’re in camp, you realize, though you don’t know exactly where. The people rushing around you seem urgent but not panicked, that same sort of focused drive you saw before the attack, where people were moving about with intensity but purpose. There are no flames that you can see, though you feel as if you must be right next to the firepit with how thick the smoke remains on the air, filling your lungs and making you want to clutch at your throat and gasp around it. 

You shudder in Thor’s arms and draw in another rasp of a breath, and just as feeling in your body begins to return to you, violent shivers start at the base of your spine and rip upwards and out. Sudden and overwhelming, making your lips part on a groan as your teeth begin to chatter together, your muscles bunching and jumping uncontrollably. 

Thor lifts you a little, supporting your upper half effortlessly with the broad of his chest, and he murmurs to you softly as he feels you begin to tremble. “ _Affa, naqis inte_. Easy.” 

You find you can move yourself again, and as much as your tired mind is shouting at you to _stand up!, get up!_ , all you can do is turn against him and groan again as shivers wrack your entire body. You feel as if you’ve been doused in ice water, even as you feel the cool breeze catch on sweat that’s broken over your brow. 

You sit up with Thor’s help, grateful for it, but he gentles you with a firm hand when your feet hit the ground and you reflexively try to push yourself up. Mental clarity has come along with the tremors and all you can think is that Thor is worried for you and that you are _fine_. That you are keeping Thor here, curled over you in the pathway of the camp, when there are certainly real, actual crises that need his attention right now. 

“Stop,” Thor says, a stern edge to his voice when you try to stand again, flailing a little against his chest, until he pints you back down there with an arm across your chest. “Stop, now.”

When you realize he won’t let you try to stand, you focus instead on willing your mouth to work. Directing all of your strength and focus to your lips and tongue and teeth, even as they chatter together beyond your control. 

“T-thor,” you manage miserably, gritting your jaw to try to stop the shivers from wobbling your voice and failing. “I’m - f - f,” _fine_ is on the tip of your tongue but you can’t force it out between the chattering of your teeth. 

But Thor is there, pressing his cheek to yours. He soothes you with quiet mouth sounds, trying to calm you when all you want to do is scramble to your feet. To rip the remaining cloud of the darkness from your senses, to assure him that you are fine, that you worried him for no reason, that he can go attend to those that need him. 

The chills are worse than the darkness, you decide, feeling like your blood has been replaced with ice water in your veins, and you manage to force a halting, shaky request for a blanket past your lips that has his brow drawing grim again as he looks down at you. He looks up, back over his shoulder, at the afternoon sun that is blazing overhead, then back down to you, worry creasing his brow deep. 

He leans over where he has you in his arms, reaching for something behind you. Rifling with something for a moment or two, the sound of items toppling to the ground barely reaching your ears before he leans back with a blanket in hand. Wrapping it around your shoulders, letting you clutch it closed around your chest as he holds you. 

You cough, your chest aching on the thick burn of smoke in your lungs, and when he touches a hand to your chest, you chatter out “The smoke,” before coughing again. God, you just want _fresh air_. To be able to pull in a full chest of clean, fresh air that doesn’t burn and taste like soot. 

Thor is frowning. Glancing up and around you for a moment, before looking back down. “There is no smoke, little bug,” he says, gently, but you shake your head at him miserably. Cocooned in the blanket around your shoulders, still shivering violently. There is smoke, you know there is. It’s all you can taste, all you can smell, coating the back of your throat in ash and making you want to gag around the clattering of your teeth. 

Thor watches you for a moment, and your eyes track a drop of blood that breaks from the wound at his hairline and drips down the side of his face. Disappearing into the thick of his beard. You lay there in his arms, shivering and pathetic, frustrated at your inability to _snap out of it_ , and then Thor seems to make a decision. 

He pushes himself to his feet, scooping you up in his arms, bundled in your blanket. You start to struggle, wanting to be _down_ , wanting to _stand_ , but he tells you to stop again, his voice sharp behind the gentle he’s clearly trying to convey to you. So you lay back in his arms instead and look at the sky. Rasping smoky breath after smoky breath, your lungs burning with it, trying to track the birds you see overhead as you shiver and shake and nearly bite your tongue with your full-body shivers. 

He carries you through camp, talking to some people over your head, some items handed to him that get placed in the cradle of your chest, but you’ve checked out. Not gone inside yourself again, but focusing all of your energy on trying to control yourself. To get warm again, to stop shaking. To be able to breathe and get your feet under you. To be able to stand and take a step back from Thor. To tell him that you’re _fine_. 

You’re so focused on this, chewing your lower lip with chattering teeth so hard that it breaks and bleeds against your tongue, that you hardly even notice when you’re pitched up overhead, Thor swinging up after you. It’s not until you hear the sound of hooves on sand that you realize you’re on a horse, Thor a warm, solid presence behind you. His arm wrapped firmly around your waist keeps you tucked close to him. 

You can’t figure out where he means to take you, your mind syrupy and slow, but you decide, as you shiver uselessly against him, that it doesn’t matter. What matters is getting ahold of yourself and you focus all of your energy into that, even as the horse beneath you steps into a trot, and then into a gallop, the sand blurring beneath you as it surges forward across the sandy plains. 

You feel no better when Thor finally dismounts from behind you and helps you down. You try to get your legs beneath you, pushing away from Thor a bit to try to stand, but he curses at you and grabs you close when your legs fail you and you nearly collapse again to the ground. He tries to scoop you up in his arms, but you fight him, wanting desperately to not need him like this, so he grumbles something under his breath and drags you instead, his arm around your upper body and your useless feet dragging on the ground behind you. 

He brings you to some shade and sets you down on the ground. Taking the blanket from around your shoulders and tugging it free, even as you whine and reach for it, feeling the shivers overtake you as you sit crumpled in the sand. He spreads the blanket out on the ground and then lifts you onto it. Stopping your hands when they reach to pull it up over your lap, tugging it back down and smoothing it over the ground. 

He disappears for a moment, and you hear the sound of leather and metal hitting the sandy ground, and he returns to you, to see that you’ve started to inch the blanket up over your knees. 

He kneels down on the blanket before you and the look on his face is one you know well, annoyance, but beneath that you think you see fear. Worry, around the corners of his eyes. He catches your gaze as your teeth chatter, and holds it. “Stop,” he tells you, motioning down to the blanket. 

You shiver and your face twists in frustration, something petulant and hot spiking in your chest even as you shiver uselessly. “I-I’m c-cold,” you say, managing to bite out the words but Thor shakes his head. Settling down before you on the blanket, maybe to keep you from pulling it up again. 

He reaches for you and touches his palm to your jaw. “You’re not cold, little bug,” he says. Voice going a little softer. Gentler. “You’re overheating.” He touches at the cold sweat at your temple, and you frown more. Confused as he shows you the sweat on his finger. 

He scoots closer, until his knees bump against yours, and then he reaches for you again. Letting his palm spread out across your sternum, over the linen of your tunic, which is soaked with sweat. You wait for him to do more but he simply stays there, his hand pressed to your chest. Watching you carefully as he breathes in deeply, and then out. Deliberately, like he wants you to copy him. 

So, you try. Your teeth chatter against your tongue and it hurts, but you bring a hand up to curl around his wrist where his hand is pressed to your heart, and you try to match his breathing. Another bout of shivers wracks up your spine and you nearly topple, but he holds you steady with the hand on your chest. 

“Breathe,” he tells you, nodding when he sees you work to draw in a deep breath. Your lungs burn, still, and you can’t stop from shaking your head. Confused, achy. He’s brought you somewhere else, but you can still taste the thick bitter smell of smoke on the air. 

“Is - ,” you chatter. Gritting your teeth together to try to stop it. “Is - there smoke here?” 

Thor shakes his head, breathing deeply again. “No, little bug,” he says. Watching carefully as your lungs expand on deliberate effort from you. “Breathe.” 

You do. You hold on to his wrist and focus on the feel of the callus on his palm against the skin of your sternum, working to fill your lungs on every inhale and to fully empty them on every exhale. The taste of smoke begins to fade, slowly at first, and then more quickly as you feel your mind beginning to center and ground and clear. 

It takes time, excruciating, slow time, but the shivers also begin to fade. With each passing minute they draw further apart, your teeth chattering more softly together, until you shiver on one final tremor, and your body releases it. 

Your hand around Thor’s wrist feels his pulse, steady and strong, and you realize that you can see again. Really see, see normally. Not through the narrow, darkened tunnels you’d been looking through before. 

He’s brought you to the clearing, you realize, and guilt is a sour thing in your belly as you look to him and realize that he brought you here to try to bring you back. To help you find yourself again even though it meant leaving his people and his clan in their time of great need. All to help you when you’re not even harmed, you’re _fine_ , you’re just _weak_ \- 

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing you say when you’re able to find your voice. It’s wobbly still, not as strong as you’d like it, but not chattering anymore. You take his hand from your chest and put it in yours, down on your lap. “I’m alright.” 

He watches you silently, the concern not gone from the corners of his eyes, and it makes emotion swell up in your chest that you claw back down. Furious with yourself as tears prick at your eyes that you blink away hard, your teeth gritted together. 

“You shouldn’t have brought me here,” you say, your voice thick with emotion that’s bottled up tight in your chest. “I’m sorry - I’m fine, you didn’t need to...you didn’t need to leave your people to bring me here.” 

He watches you still, his hand still cradled in both of yours. Your eye goes to the wound on his hairline, at the blood still fresh and wet there, and you chew on your lip hard enough that it hurts on another well of emotion. 

“I’m sorry,” you say again, your breath getting tangled up as the words rush out of you. “You’re - you’re _hurt_ , and I’m _not_ , I’m fine, but I’ve brought you here - and - and - you should be back at camp where they need you - I’m _sorry_ \- ” 

Guilt is nauseating and sickly in your belly, making you feel a little light headed, but he doesn’t try to stop you. Just sits and watches you, like he’s waiting for you to run out of steam. 

After a few moments, you let out a watery sigh and let go of his hand. Staring at the blanket on the ground where some sand has gathered on it. The shame you feel is sickening. 

Thor takes his hand back but leans towards you to reach something behind you. Coming back with a flask in his hands when he leans back, holding it out to you until you take it. It takes you a few tries to uncork it but you take a cursory sip when you manage to. The water feels good, cooling down your throat that feels raw from smoke. You look up, holding the flask back to him, but he shakes his head and lifts his chin at you. Telling you to drink more, so you do. Taking a long pull, and then another. Wiping your mouth when you spill a little, setting the flask down in your lap. Feeling deflated. Like all of your strength has left you and all that remains is guilt. 

Thor seems content to watch you in silence, worry still firmly etched across his face in a way that makes your stomach churn. You worried him, terribly. For nothing. For no good reason at all. 

“What, uh,” you say, finally. Breaking the quiet silence and taking another sip of water. “What...happened?” 

That makes Thor exhale a little, a little of the tension drawing out from his shoulders. “The Kovarro Clan,” he says by way of explanation. 

You chew on your lower lip, tasting blood in your mouth. Wanting to keep him talking though. To get him to realize that you’re fine and this is fine and everything is fine. “I…” you say. “I didn’t realize there were others.” 

Thor nods in response, his mouth a little grim. “There are many,” he says. “It’s the only way to survive out here. To take what you can and protect your own.” 

Part of you is taken a little aback by that, your mind going immediately to your old village. Where Jakkor participated in some meager trading but where the members of the village never rode out and pillaged. As soon as the thought crosses your mind, though, you swallow it down. The people of your old village settled for what they had, but what they had was not much of a life at all. Even as the consort to the king, you ate nothing but dusty, flavorless grains washed down with meager portions of water. Perhaps, you think, Thor is right. That to live in a place as harsh as this, to really live, you must do so at the expense of all others. 

Thor lets out another breath, a frustrated one. “Some of their riders got behind us, and then...well.” There’s anger there in his expression, fleeting but you catch a glimpse. Directed at himself, you think. “Those back at camp did what we could not. One of the Kovarro horses was fatally wounded in the rope line and the others fled soon after.” 

Your impulse is to reach for his hand, but you don’t. Picking instead at a thread in your dress. “Did we lose anyone?” you ask, voice going a little soft. Afraid to know the answer. 

But Thor shakes his head. “Some wounded, but they will heal.” 

You nod, allowing yourself to feel the bit of relief that brings. Your eye goes to the wound at his hairline, still glistening with blood. “And the others? That you rode out to meet?” 

“They are no more,” is all Thor says, and you bite back a shudder at the edge in his voice. Like he regrets not one bit of it. Like he would do it again, if he had to, without hesitation. 

The impulse sparks again to go to him and you let yourself lift to your knees. Scoot a little closer to him. Your hair rising to his face then faltering when his eyes slide to yours. So serious, still. 

“Are you alright?” you ask, finally. He gives you a look like the question was ridiculous, so you touch your finger to where he’s bleeding and show him the blood on the pad of your finger, frowning. 

“Fine,” he says, shaking his head a little dismissively. You look him over and see that there’s blood elsewhere. Sprayed across his chestplate, a dark stain of it on the outside of one of his thighs under a slash in his breeches. It makes your chest ache. You do take his hand then. Squeezing it in yours. 

“And Rhaek?” you ask, and then follow Thor’s gaze as it goes across the clearing. Rhaek is there, and you suppose you should have figured it was Rhaek that brought you out here. He is standing in the far corner of the shade, his coat still stained dark with sweat and blood, but his tail swishes as he nibbles at the sand. Unbothered. 

When you look back to Thor, you catch the tail end of a look crossing over his face. A warmer one than before. He turns his hand in yours until his palm is facing upwards and you look at your hand in his. How small yours is compared to his, your eyes catching on the blood stains on the palm of his. 

“Everything is alright, little bug,” he says after pause. His eyes meeting yours when yours lift, something sincere in the blue of them as his hand closes around yours. “Nothing was lost today that cannot be rebuilt. When we return to camp, all will be well.” 

It occurs to you, just then, that he is still trying to comfort you. That he worries, still for you. 

“Thor,” you murmur, shaking your head. “I’m - I’m sorry, I’m - fine. I’m _fine_. I worried you unnecessarily, and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t mean to. We can return now. I know...I know you must be needed there.” 

You start to push to your feet but Thor doesn't budge, and his hand around yours keeps you rooted to your spot on the blanket. You try again, shifting your weight forward to stand, but he remains still. Seated on the blanket, his hand covering yours in your lap. 

He lets out a slow breath, then looks at you. “When I returned to camp,” he says. Slowly, like he’s choosing his words with care. “I could not find you.” 

“I’m sorry,” you say, quietly, but he shakes his head. Making your mouth close back up. 

“I...searched for you. Everywhere. I thought…” He pauses, then continues. “I thought that they got to you. Somehow.” 

You shake your head, your heart aching in your chest, but you stay quiet. Knowing that he wants you to, somehow. 

“And then I came around a corner and saw you there. Collapsed in the sand. I…” his voice trails, and he looks away, at something past your shoulder. “I thought you dead, little bug.” 

When his eyes meet yours again the rawness in them makes a thick swell of emotion tangle up in your chest. Makes tears prick at the corners of your eyes that you blink back. 

“You were cold when I touched you. I called you and you didn’t come back to me. I thought…” He stops and scrubs the palm of his free hand over his beard. “I could feel your heartbeat but you were gone from me. Only Zhaf was able to bring you back.” 

You swallow another apology, knowing it useless. 

He lets out another breath, deliberately slow. “That was not nothing, little bug. I held you in my arms and thought you dead.” 

You draw in a deep breath around the painful ache in your heart and bring his hand in yours up, pressing a kiss to the backs of his knuckles and tasting the copper tang of blood. You want nothing more in this moment than to take the pain he feels, to take it on and carry it over your own shoulders so that he might find some peace. It hurts like a wound, to see him like this. And if explaining this part of you to him will help, then you know you owe him that. 

You bring his hand back to your lap and chew on your lip for a moment. Choosing your words in your mind with care. “Before you,” you say, your thumb sweeping over the bumps of his knuckles. “In that village where you found me, I was...life was not...good there,” you say, slowly. Struggling to articulate yourself, but he gives you time. 

“Jakkor kept me and...I was his. And he did with me...what he wished.” 

Thor nods, his eyes gone solemn. Like he figured but hadn’t ever had it confirmed aloud before. 

“I began to...go into myself. When bad things would happen. To...retreat back into my mind so I didn’t have to...feel. What was happening.” You let your eyes drift down to the sand around you, until you feel a pulse of his hand around yours. 

“It got easier,” you say. “To go into myself like that. Over time. And eventually, I couldn't necessarily...control it. And I would just...go. If I felt too afraid.” 

Thor watches you for a moment, then. His eyes searching yours, lines deep in his brow. Rhaek snorts softly, somewhere behind you, but his eyes stay on you. 

“Today,” he says, shaking his head a little. “Must have been just like before. When we raided your village.” 

You bring his hand up to press another kiss to the back of his palm. Your chest aching for him. Wanting nothing more than to crawl into his lap and shove your face against the side of his neck. 

“It was, but that was not why I was afraid.” 

His eyebrows lift softly. 

“I wasn’t afraid of the other riders making it to camp. I just thought that if they did, you must be…” you let your voice trail, not even wanting to say it. “I thought you were gone...and...I couldn’t...I couldn’t handle it. I’m sorry you had to see me that way, and I’ll try not to do it again. I just...thought you were gone.”

You feel exposed, then. Sitting there in the cool breeze, raw like an exposed nerve. You look to Thor, your face starting to crumple with emotion, and he opens his arms at once. Drawing you in with a gentle hand on your forearm, pulling you into his lap until your face is pressed against the side of his throat. His arms wrap around you, secure and warm, and you feel the bristle of his beard against your hair when he speaks.

“I am here, little bug,” he says. “I have not left you. I will not leave you.” 

You let out a shuddering breath against his pulse and nod, your forehead bumping gently against his chestplate. “Okay,” you whisper, your voice wobbly. 

You stay there, curled up against his chest and breathing through the worst of it, as his fingertips trace aimless patterns across your back and as he murmurs soft things to you. Holding you close as the sun begins it’s path down towards the horizon. Nothing happening at all in the world besides you and him and the steady, worn paths that your heartbeats travel. Having each other, and it’s enough.


End file.
